Saturday 6 June 2015

Into the Groove

Well now, the suitcases are all unpacked and put away, clothes washed and ironed and I’ve spent the week trying to catch up on the things I should have been doing whilst I was lying in the sun.

Before I go away I always think that I’ve done everything I can to make my homecoming as smooth as possible but I always seem to be on the back foot playing catch up.  It doesn’t help that we have a lot of social / family commitments this month so I’m trying to get my head round what needs to be done.  Still, I’d rather be busy than bored.

And despite all this I’m still trying to hang onto the holiday vibe.

As usual we stayed at an all-inclusive hotel.  One of these days, when the boys are older, I dream of staying in a remote villa with complete peace and quiet, but I know if we tried that now the boys would be complaining within five minutes that there is nothing to do.

Here at least there are plenty of other children for them to play with and all sorts of facilities and activities to keep them occupied and entertained.  The complex was fairly small so now that the boys are older, we can give them some independence, but it was good to still be able to keep an eye on them.

I’m afraid we’re not very adventurous on holiday.  For a long time now my husband has been working seven days a week, most weeks and he just needed a break.  As long as the sun is there he’s happy to lie by the pool working hard on his tan, and I’m equally happy to read and write.

For this my Kindle is a godsend as I am not limited to the amount of books I can take with me and can pick and choose what I want to read whilst I am away.  Also, I send my own writing to my Kindle and this holiday I reviewed the first draft of a novel I have written and plotted out what needs to be changed or added.  I love seeing my writing on the Kindle, it feels as though it is “proper” writing, and I was pleased that there were a lot of things I really liked about the novel.

It is set in Chester both in the present day and during World War II.  To have written it to this stage I have already done quite a bit of research, both about the war in general and more specifically about life in Chester during the war.  Now it’s time to delve a bit deeper and so I’m looking forward to going to the Records Office to get down to the finer details.  In the meantime there is plenty I can edit in the sections which cover the present day. 


I have come back with renewed enthusiasm to start work on this and just hope I can maintain that enthusiasm now that I’m faced with the nitty-gritty of real life.

Thursday 4 June 2015

Back To Reality

Well, May passed by in a blur especially as we were on holiday for ten days of it, so apologies for the lack of blog posts recently.

Life was all a bit hectic before we went away, we had a lovely relaxing 10 days and then came back down to earth with a bump.

When I booked the holiday I thought we were travelling back on Saturday night arriving back at 1.30 on Sunday morning.  With the rest of Sunday to recover I thought this would be fine. On closer inspection though, I realised that we were in fact coming back on Sunday night, arriving in the early hours of Monday morning when we were all due in work or school.  Still, I thought if we got some sleep on the plane and had a good run through the airport it wouldn't be to bad.

But I wasn't factoring in baggage handlers who were on a go-slow.  We waited an hour and three quarters for our luggage, amidst chaos of other flights coming in and getting their baggage before us.  It was carnage, just what you don't need in the early hours.

We eventually got home at 4am, grabbed a couple of hours sleep and woke up to find that that a mains water pipe had burst in the village and there was no water.  My youngest's school was closed but as I couldn't stay off work I then had to find someone to look after him.  My husband whizzed over to his mum's to get some water and at least we had enough for a quick wash, a cup of tea and even managed to clean our teeth.

Not exactly conducive to keeping hold of the holiday vibe but I do like a challenge!

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