Some Snooze, Some Submit

Bloggie friends!

While Charlie did this all weekend when spring finally sprung and we basked in a mini-heatwave...



... I wrote one short story and submitted here. Thanks to amazing Patsy and Madeleine for the heads up to this writerly opportunity.

Wish me luck!

And big yay for Patsy - her debut romance novel Escape to the Country will be out on 30th March! You can read the first chapter here - you won't be disappointed - there's a cow called Rosemary, a dishy tractor driver and lovely lonesome Leah looking for love. :-)

Have a great week everyone!

Chicks, Coffee, Charlie!

bootilicious babe
brave, beautiful and brainy
glass ceilings beware!

This is an entry for the Mookychick blogging competition, FEMINIST FLASH FICTION 2011. Enter now.

Thanks lovely Patsy for the info about the above!

Charlie says: Mine's a cattuccino with extra sprinkle of nip please.



Wonderful bloggie friends!

I can't wait for December, can you? It means, Christmas, holidays, pressies and fun work parties (LOL!) and more presents!! How exciting! I'm excited, I hope you all are too. And if you celebrate something else not Christmas then I hope you all have a fabulous celebration too! And please may I join? Yay!

See y'all in December!

p.s lovely Madeleine is having a Cool as a Cucumber Turn a Cliche into Something wonderful blogfest! Now I normally run away from blogfests but this sounds like "something up my street"! LOL! Details here:



Jingle bells all the way!

Today is a Yellow Day for Livestrong!

Bloggie friends!

Today, Charlie and I are pledging to go yellow for Livestrong Day!



Set up by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, Livestrong seeks to “fight to improve the lives of people affected by cancer” through raising funds, organising support groups, etc.



Comments are off for today in the hope that you visit the above links, share your own personal experiences (if you wish) of this disease or just make a pledge to wear yellow and/or donate and/or just find out what Livestrong is all about!

Have a lovely Sunday!

Thaaar she blows!

Bloggie friends!

I may be sporadic with my blog postings this week (stop cheering at the back! LOL!) cos I’ve decided to try and crack this writing comp (thanks to the ever so fragrant Patsy and fab womagwriter) and need time and space to do this.

That’s the plan anyway!

In the meantime, today is MEOW LIKE A PIRATE DAY! And here is Charlie being all pirate-y!


Thank you to the ever so creative Jan of Jan’s Funny Farm for the fabulous graphic of Charlie!!



May y’all have an oooh- arrrrr and if you prefer, an oooo-er missus kind of week! Yay!

Of course I’ll be visiting y’all as much as I can!

Trains, bakes and giants

Bloggie friends!

What does one do when unable to travel to work and forced to take a precious day’s leave because all trains to London have been cancelled due to “overhead wire problems?”

Bake cookies!


Thank you lovely Martine of Silencing the Bell for Beths’ Famous Oaty Cookies recipe.

The cookies were so easy to do and so so so so so yummy!

Thank you National Express East Anglia train company (not).

Charlie says: Now I sit on your glasses and look even more gigantic.


Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

Party of the Willow

Bloggie friends!

Today, I've gatecrashed adorable Talli Roland's celebratory launch of her second book "Watching Willow Watts"!

The theme of her party is to come as your alter ego. So without further ado:

"If I could be anyone, I'd like to be..."

RIZZO! Only as played by the wonderful Stockard Channing in Grease (1978).

Why? Cos she's a Pink Lady! She wears black pencil skirts! She's a bad girl with a fragile passionate heart! And Stockard Channing steals the show from gorgeous Olivia Newton John's Sandy after she sings this song.



About Watching Willow Watts: available here and here.

For Willow Watts, life has settled into a predictably dull routine. But everything changes when a YouTube video of Willow's epically embarrassing Marilyn Monroe impersonation gets millions of hits. Instantly, Willow's town is overrun with fans flocking to see the 'new Marilyn'.
When a former flame returns seeking the old Willow, Willow must decide: can she risk her stardom and her village's newfound fortune on love, or is being Marilyn her ticket to happiness?

Charlie says: I watch and I learn


Happy Wednesday! Go Talli!

THANK YOU!!!

Bloggie friends!

I just wanted to sneak in a huge THANK YOU for your kind words and time reading my little silly story yesterday! Awwww you are all shiny sparkly stars!

Charlie says: I sleep now on your writerly pad.



Happy Tuesday!

My story on a postcard

Bloggie friends!

Are you able to fit a whole story on the back of a postcard? The answer is YES, YOU CAN!

Here’s mine! LOL!

And the lovely Ellie Garratt’s and gorgeous Margo Benson's too.

But typical me I’m reading my story and thinking – yikes – it ain’t finished, needs more work – why on earth did I send this story, tis melodramatic rubbish...!

Ahem.

Charlie says: You get postcard, I have toys and treats.


Thank you wonderful Suzanne of Four Crazy Cats for this very special surprise for Charlie! As you can see he couldn’t wait for me to open the box properly - he went completely doollally!

Happy Monday everyone!

The Long Weekend

Bloggie friends!

Today sees the start of the August Bank Holiday holiday here in the UK – so I'm going to have a lovely long weekend with a few extra days off too.

What is a Bank Holiday? I have no idea – but all I know is that it means a long weekend and a shorter week. Hooorah!

I’m hoping to perhaps spend my short break trying to reacquaint myself with my narcoleptic writerly muse but I know I’ll take the wrong turn and meet up with my cooking/baking one instead! Yay!

Charlie and I will be back late next week so in the meantime please be happy and healthy and enjoy some chocolate, if not, a nice cup of tea.

Charlie says: I meet my napping muse.


We hope our friends across the pond stay safe and take extra extra special care.

Have a peaceful weekend, everyone!

Being far too precious

Bloggie friends!

Yesterday I thought I was doing the right thing when I pointed out to the librarian of the university where I work that one of the library books has been defaced.

Someone went through the text with different coloured highlighter pens and scribbled in biro on the margins of the pages, and of course I was most appalled.

But not as appalled as said librarian who then replies with “Oh you are being far too precious about books”.

When I asked her to explain her statement she said, “That’s what people do to library books so people should stop being so sensitive about it”.

This, bloggie friends, from a fully qualified went to library school, custodian of all things literary, LIBRARIAN.

Will the madness never end!?

Charlie says: I like my hat.



Beautiful Sammy, Andy, Shelly and mum who gave Charlie his hat are having a most fabulous auction and commentathons to help them through a horrible financial crisis. We send them lots of hugs and purrs and are bidding for the bookmark!

Old Kitty sighs at her lack of metaphor prowess

“The pages rustled like a lot of pigeons taking flight”
(From Terry Pratchett’s “I Shall Wear Midnight”, pp. 301)

The above is why I know I’ve got so much to learn with this writing stories malarkey!

I would never have created such a metaphor. Never in a million years!

Can you see and hear it bloggie friends?

I can hear the rustling of what must be the pages of a very big, very thick book. I can see the pages go whoosh and slap and feel the air disturbed as I would when caught in the middle of a flock of pigeons taking sudden flight!

The whole metaphor is so deceptively simple yet effective.

Sigh.

Charlie says: I too am deceptively simple yet effective. Ask Mr Klingon birdie!

Such fun with yesterday’s Star Trek blogfesting – thank you everyone and lovely Ellie! Yay!

All Aboard!

Welcome bloggie friends to gorgeous Captain Ellie's Star Trek blogfest!

Here are my five most favouritist things about all things Star Trek - and mainly from the 1960's original series.

1) Tribbles – what's not to like? They purr, are furry and make most humanoids smile!



2) Lt Uhura’s sexy red uniform – hubba, hubba!



3) Dilithium Crystals – the words just roll off my tongue like liquid chocolate!




4) Seatbelts. Or Lack Of. Y'all must have seen the episodes where the crew on deck are attacked and they get flung about and out of their seats for lack of anything to strap them into their seats.

5) “Boldly going forward cos we can’t find reverse” lyrics from The Firm’s homage to the series and their classic catchphrases.



The end! Charlie and I consider ourselves confined to quarters for the rest of the journey!
:-)

She cannae take it!

Bloggie friends!

Why do they make snacks look like cute and cuddly baby bears?!!?


See? I may love my snacks, but I also eat my greens! :-)

Now bloggie friends! The lovely Ellie Garrat will be hosting a Star Trek As We Know It blogfest on 22 August. All you have to do is list 5 of your all time favourite Star Trek things – characters, episodes – anything – and why!

I just had to sign Charlie up cos he’s a Trekker Kitty through and through.

Charlie says: I see Klingon birdie. Phasers set to stun.


Have a brilliant weekend everyone!

How Publishing Really Works gave me Charlie

Today is World Cat Day
To celebrate I’d say
How Charlie came to be
How he was delivered here to me

A writerly non-kitty blogger (gorgeous Jane Smith of How Publishing Really Works)
Sent out an S.O.S.
As Charlie was to be made homeless
So after my Ol kitty Girl died
In my grief, I soon replied

And so on March the 21st
In 2010, he burst
Into my heart he came
Life’s never been the same!

Charlie says: Rhyming S.O.S with homeless – pure awfulness!

HAPPY silly MONDAY!

With a little help from friends

Bloggie friends!!!

I truly could learn a thing or three from Charlie!

He so dearly wanted to go go to Bora Bora for yesterday’s celebrations and because I am totally useless at photoshopping and couldn't send him, he just wished and wished and wished and never gave up and continued dreaming!

Thanks to the help and support of all his amazing pals, his dream came true!


Thank you, beautiful Jan of Jan's Funny Farm for helping him pack and flying him over!


Thank you, wonderful Alasandra of Alasandra the Cats and Dog for keeping him company!

Thank you, Gracie for hosting such a fun event!

So bloggie friends, keep wishing and hoping and dreaming! Never give up!

If dreams can come true for Charlie, they can for you too - yes they will!

:-)

Have a great weekend!

Heartsease

Bloggie friends!

Of course we all know what a little extra effort and a lot of tender loving care can do to the most unpromising of situations!

Take these heartsease - all of these were "rescued" from the same hardware shop where I got my hanging basket flowers. They started off as 6 plug plants all wilting and in dry compost. With a pot each and fresh compost and daily watering, they've blossomed.


Never lose hope, bloggie friends! With love and support, you can do it!!

Charlie says: Someone's bed needs tidying.


Have a great weekend!

Conundrums

Bloggie friends! Please help me!

If you were to read: “send us a story of no more than 2000 words” would you think they want a story of anything from 1 word to 2000 words?

Or do they want 2000 words exactly?

It’s just I think I have a story but the final word count is 912 so maybe it’s too short and won’t qualify.

My brain’s trying to work this conundrum out and can’t seem to get a straight answer! LOL!

What do you think?

Charlie says: I think it is snack time.


I love long weekends just gone! Yay, more please!

Delusions of grandeur

Bloggie friends!!!

I started writing a blog post about my sweet elderly neighbour but then the post grew into a proper story!

So forgive me please and understand the writer in me cos I seriously did think “Gosh darn it, this is far too good for a blog post – no I can’t share , I won’t, don’t make me but when it's published, then I'll share, oh yes I will!"

LOL!

Who says blogging isn’t inspirational?!?! Who says I’m not a paranoid selfish delusional crazy person?!?! :-)

Charlie says: I just lay here and wait for next door to call.


Have a fabulous mid-week, everyone!

Mess of Eton

Bloggie friends!!

You are all so wonderful that I made a big batch of Eton Mess in your honour!

Eton Mess – mash up some strawberries with a dash of sugar, a drop of liqueur, mix with crumbled up meringue and add a good dollop of low fat soya single cream alternative.

H-E-A-V-E-N in a bowl.

Charlie says: I give you more evil eye.


Today the lovely Ann Best launches her memoir In the Mirror. I’ve ordered my PRINT copy and look forward to receiving it. Yay!

Have a peaceful day!

Oh the inhumanity!

Hello there bloggie friends!!!!!

Awwww Charlie and I got so cut off from y'all for NEARLY TWO DAYS!

OH the INHUMANITY!

LOL!!! But yay that we're now all connected again!!! Blogger - you are one crazy internet creature!!

It's the Eurovision Song Contest here today - and so me and Charlie will be singing along and clapping to hours and hours of crazy songs!

Charlie says: I try to hide behind the strawberry plant but Blogger found me!


HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!! I'll hopefully catch up with y'all!