Apologies For Absence

I haven’t been around much at all in Blogland this month – so apologies to you all for not keeping up with your blogs.  I don’t have much of an excuse except that once more my life seems to have taken over me.

The first half term of having a child in high school has been a revelation.  My eldest has settled in well, in fact he loves it, and I can’t believe how mature (on the whole) he is behaving.  Homework is a bit of a challenge though, and although he is being vigilant at keeping up with it, he still needs help in prioritising it (and he’s asking me?)

The fact that he comes home each night and starts his homework is great though, and has had a positive effect on my youngest who is being much more conscientious about his own homework.  I’m so glad that I can be around to help them with this, even though it takes time (and patience).

October is the month of my Mum’s birthday and last year we were very organised and bought this year’s present (tickets to go and see Wicked and The Palace Theatre, Manchester) in advance.  My Dad and brother aren’t big musical fans but my husband likes to go as well as the boys.  My sister-in- law is mad about The Wizard of Oz – she even took part in an Am Dram production last year as the Wicked Witch, so it was a great opportunity for Mum to go with us and all her grandchildren (the other men just don’t know what they are missing).

I didn’t know much about Wicked except that it was connected to the Wizard of Oz.  I purposely didn’t find out much about it before we went because I wanted to enjoy it without having any preconceptions.

It was a truly magical show telling the back-story of the Wicked Witch of the West.  The two main characters (the Wicked Witch and the Good Fairy) really did carry the show. It was fabulous and made me wish that I could dance, sing or act (sadly I can’t do any of them!)

Half term has been taken up with our annual holiday.  I can hardly believe that we haven’t been away properly this year, so we booked a week in Lanzarote.  A chance to get some sunshine before coming back to the mizzle and drizzle of winter.  We had a fabulous time – mostly spent lazily on sun loungers, although there was a rather pathetic attempt to play tennis (least said about that the better). The complex was quite small so it gave the boys for a chance for a bit of freedom (while we could still keep an eye on them) and make new friends.

There was plenty of time to read, write and reflect and I’ve really got my head around what I want to achieve over the next few months. Now I’ve just got to act on it! We’ve had some brilliant family time and I’m trying my best not to bump back down to earth too quickly despite being straight back into a busy week, and all the washing and ironing!

Bad, Bad Blogger

I've been meaning to post for a while now - honest guv! But of course the longer you leave it, the more there is to write, and the longer it will take, so I kept putting it off!

 

So, what have I been up to?  Well for a start we went away for half term - yeh!  Ten days in Lanzarote.  It was quite a small all-inclusive complex in Costa Teguise, which meant the boys could have a bit more independence, make new friends, and I could read - and yes, write!

 

I took my trusty Kindle with me, which has been collecting books and free downloads for a while now, and I managed to spend some time idyling in the minds of my favourite authors, while lying in the sun - in October - what more can you ask for? We certainly needed the break I can tell you.

But now it seems like it was a long time ago - even if it was only a few weeks ago - but I've been a busy bunny since I've been back.

 

Of course there has been the usual post holiday washing and ironing - yuck - although ironing does give me a chance to catch up on all the TV programmes I've recorded - the freeview box was nearly full (ouch).  We also had a 31 October deadline for applying for a high school for my eldest - it was a bit of tricky dilemma.

 

I've also done a few short story courses recently - one online and one in Leeds last weekend, more of that later, I've done some freelance work and I've signed up for NaNoWriMo.

 

Readers of this blog will know that I've completed NaNo twice, the challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November. I didn't do it last year and I really missed it, so I decided to go for it this year, even though I had so much on before and during this month.

Well, I started off really badly, in fact I didn't even start until 3rd November, and I've been playing catch up ever since. There have been days when I haven't been able to write at all and days when I've written a lot, but despite that I was still behind. Yesterday, though, I managed to catch up. The stats on the website are brilliant, and I have to admit to becoming a little obsessed with them. When you update your word count, it averages your daily word count, estimates how many words you will have to write each day to finish on time, what day you will finish if you continue writing at the current speed - I've gone from 6 December to 29 November yeh! And there's even a graph showing where you are and where you need to be! Oh I love it. My aim was to hit the line on the graph and yesterday I did it! I'm now at 28,700 words and one the homeward run, trouble is I'm running out of plot. 30,000 - 40,000 are always the hardest to write so I'll have to hope I come up with some inspiration, otherwise I'll be writing complete nonsense! Who's says I'm not anway.

So, in a nutshell, that's what I've been up to lately. And now that I'm catching up a bit, I'm hoping to be able to blog a bit more frequently - I also need to catch up on the blogs I haven't had chance to read yet as well!

I don't know if any of you remember, but before I went away I found a cat in the road. In the dark it looked as though the cat had had a injury behind it's ear and by the way it was behaving it was obviously not quite right. It turned out that the thing behind the ear was a massive tumour - poor thing. A note that I put up in the local post office, managed to locate the owner, but when they contacted the vet, they decided that the poor thing was too ill to go on and so she was put to sleep. I was saddened to think that the poor little thing is no more, but can only console myself that she is no longer in pain. And it was a much more dignified ending than being hit by a car.

On that note I'll go now, but I'm hoping to be back soon. Watch this space!

Linda