"We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I di...

The secret art of inviting happiness, The miraculous medicine for all diseases. At least for today: Do not be angry, Do not w...

I like the time between Christmas and New Year – it’s a time I like to think a lot, to consider the past year and think how I want to live i...

I live with someone who hates Christmas , and last year, in deference to him, we did not celebrate it here. Christmas was OFF. This year it...

On Sunday we had a day long power cut and I made porridge and soup on top of the log burning stove in the sitting room. We used paraffin lam...

I had a bad, sad day yesterday and I decided that my mood might improve if I got more sleep. “I think I’ve been getting up too early,” I sai...

Further update at 5.30 p.m. We have power! Yay! I have rather enjoyed the soft light of the paraffin lamps, and the roaring warmth of the ...

Dave and I woke up at five. He got up. I snuggled under the duvet. Five minutes later he was standing over me saying “We have a power cut...

Thank you everyone who cheered me up by having a go at my Christmas Competition. The interpretation of the card that I liked the best – a...

This is your last chance to enter my Christmas Competition . The deadline is midnight, Friday December 17th in California which is 8 a.m....

I am sitting here in bed at 9.06 a.m. The house is empty. The house is silent. My SAD light has been on since I woke up and sat up in bed. N...

I am fed up, there is no denying it. For the past eighteen months I have been sending my latest book to literary agents, and getting the s...

Update – aarrghh. There are gremlins in Blogger, getting in the way of people posting entries in my Christmas Competition. Another friend ra...

Yesterday we woke to a landscape that looked like a lino-cut, and a house so warm we didn’t need slippers. Yay! And I got to do excitin...

First, I’m sorry to anyone who has entered my Christmas competition and whose entry has not appeared. A friend told me that this has happen...

Every year I have a Christmas competition, and this one is being posted early – to cheer me up. Here are my two favourite cards from my bir...

No more snow overnight, but now we have freezing fog, and the temperature is –9. Yesterday’s snow covered roads will now be solid ice. I h...

Well, here I am sitting in bed typing again, but this time I have the huge white blinding SAD light sitting on the blanket chest facing m...

…to stay in bed and write. But I got up anyway and we went for a walk… But our local cafe was closed… Forgive...

My brother Pete rang yesterday and asked about our narrowboat holiday. He thought - from my blog post - that it had been awful. But it hadn’...

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's own, or real life. The truth is of...

The narrowboat was advertised as a “premium” boat, but when we got on it we wondered why.  We kept saying to each other “But it was very che...

You’d think it was spring in Cheshire, where we went on the narrowboat - We had five fine days, sometimes with sun, and we had lots of ...

I am taking: The Grapes of W rath by John Steinbeck – because it is a classic that I have never read, and because I know I can read Stein...

Do you remember our love affair with narrowboats this spring? Well, ever since then Dave has been devouring copies of Waterways World and o...