Times, They Could Be Changing

It’s been five months since my redundancy and I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown.  I send the children off to school each morning and before I know it, it’s time to pick them up again.

I don’t seem to have much writing to show for this time away from work, but on the other hand I have been trying to set up a new business and have had nine year’s worth of clutter to try and dispose of (still working on that one!) Let’s just put it this way I found writing magazines which were only than my sons which just goes to show how long I’ve been at this lark.

Some days I feel as though I get a lot done and then others nothing at all, but on the whole it’s been lovely being out of the rat race for a while.

However, it looks as though my little sojourn might be coming to an end. Out of the other week I had a telephone call from the college I used to work at asking me to apply for a management post to cover a maternity leave. It’s four days a week and could be up to a year. In the other day I will be able to continue with my freelance work.  So, if I do get the job I’ll be back to more or less full time work for the foreseeable future.

I must say I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand I’m delighted to be head hunted, and obviously am not going to turn down the opportunity to earn some money, but after five months I am a bit daunted about going back into the real world again.

I’m sure I’ll cope, I’ve done it before after all but it does mean that I will have less time for my writing.  

But you know what they say, if you want something doing, ask a busy woman, so I’ll just have to be better organised.

And besides, I might be counting my chickens etc – I’ve got an interview on Tuesday, so wish me luck.  I think.

Holiday Reading

It's been a while since my last post I know and I did promise a post the next day, slaps own wrist, but life sometimes has a habit of getting in the way, especially now. Ever since I got back from holiday I don't seem to have stopped running either at home or at work and I'm desperately trying to carve out writing time on top of all that.

The holiday seems like a long time ago but it was a much needed break and helped me get my head round the news that my current job will be ending at the end of the next academic year. Now I'm trying to look on the positive - a year is more than most people have in job expectancy and it could be the era of change for the best. So I want to spend the next year saving as much money as I can, writing as much as I can and trying to find some freelance options, writing or otherwise, so that I can organise my life a bit better around childcare. You never know it might be a much needed opportunity to kick start a new career (fingers crossed).

I digress, what I was going to blog about was reading. One of the things I look forward to in a beach holiday is all that lovely reading time. Picking the books I'm going to take with me probably takes me longer than packing my clothes, because its a difficult choice from my ever increasing tbr pile.

Now, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my choice of books and if the technology works this will be complete with pictures. If not I may be asking for advice. So here goes.

The first book I read was Barbara Taylor-Bradford's Being Elizabeth.

I grew up reading The Woman of Substance series and dreamed of being as successful as Elizabeth Harte, so I’ve always had a soft spot for this author.

This book was a present for Christmas so has been on my TBR pile for a while now. The story is about Elizabeth Turner, a young woman who inherits a dynasty from the Deravenal family and is one of a series.

Barbara Taylor-Bradford paints the settings with her usual carefully detailed brushstrokes, and I enjoyed reading about the lifestyle of the rich, however, I was largely disappointed by this book. I must admit I didn’t really like the main character very much. Everyone else in the book revered her, thought she was brilliant business woman and was deserving of her success but I felt that this was down to both her inheritance and the people around her rather than from anything she had succeeded for herself and as such I found her character unconvincing.

I did, though, read the author’s note at the back of the book and was intrigued to find that the author had based the story on the life of Elizabeth I but had set it in the present day. I’m a big fan of Tudor history so I enjoyed seeing how she had replicated history in modern times and this was probably the biggest incentive for me to keep reading.

Next time, I'll tell you about some of my other reading.

Have a good weekend everyone.