Home Thoughts Weekly

I’m sorry if I haven’t visited your blog. I haven’t gone off you; it’s just that the Force of the Writing Pants is with me. My creative bits and pieces are flowing free and I’m working like a thing possessed. I only hope I’m a thing possessed by someone who can shift shedloads of books, not some mad eejit. Cardiff Half Marathon Training Runner’s World SmartCoach Programme Week 8, a ‘dropping back’ week = 16 dog and trot-free miles. ‘It’s OK, I’m wearing really big knickers’, one of the fabulously funny Confessions of Georgia Nicolson by Louise Rennison

Will anyone seeing the lazy-bum writer known here as Chrish please fit her with writing pants and return her to her desk immediately? There is WORK to be done, Chris. Do you really think you are going to become a successful novelist by THINKING about it? Hmm? Stop Press! Oh, berlimey! Never forget to be very careful about what you wish for; I now have some serious work to do which will require my strongest, biggest writing pants!

Tom’s school friend, Mick, and his family have come for a visit. It’s a glorious day and west Wales is at its breathtaking best. Mick’s thirteen-year-old daughter lights up at the mention of dolphins and harbour porpoises in the bay. ‘Can we see dolphins?’ she asks. Now, the best time to see dolphins is probably not on a hot holiday afternoon when Mwnt is swarming with staycationers, but it’s our local beach so we brave the gridlock of folks trying not to scrape their expensive city cars in the narrow, twisting lane and find ourselves a quiet spot on the cliffs. With sun on their faces and spectacular views, our visitors are perfectly happy, but only Mick’s daughter really believes that dolphins will appear. And suddenly, exactly in the spot where we’ve told them to look, the miracle happens. One black fin appears and then another as two harbour porpoises break the surface. It doesn’t always work like that, but it’s a great feeling when it does. The weekend brings my lovely Li...

Thank you, Gaelikaa for so kindly presenting me with this award. I'm afraid I'm skipping the meme as I think that I've aired all I feel comfortable with, but if anyone else would like to take it up the rules are over at gaelikaa's so you can check out her new-look blogs at the same time.

Crossing the bar at Cardigan is always something of an experience even in benign conditions. You surf out on waves breaking on the beach at Poppit and then bear right aiming at the rocks at the foot of the Cliff Hotel. Sometimes you can have conversations with your neighbour fishing off the same rocks as you pass. Once you’re out there’s nothing but sea and even on the calmest days the waters lurch and roll with the last of the Atlantic swell. In bad conditions there’s nowhere safe to run except Fishguard or Holyhead. Today we’re off to Fishguard, it takes three hours motoring, because there’s no wind. We spend a blissful afternoon in the rare sunshine before watching the sun bleach to apricot and the amethyst clouds darken to pewter. Lights twinkle in Goodwick and we raise a glass of malt whisky to a good day. The next morning we motor to Cwm yr Eglwys, a sheltered bay, where we drop the anchor and settle down for another peaceful day in the sun. Peaceful that is until tw...

Back from sea in one piece... with a Distinction in my OU A215 Creative Writing Course. Hurray!!!!!!!

I’ve just returned from a trip to casualty. Not quite the ending to the morning run I expected. Less than a mile from home, outside a pretty little cottage the other side of the village, I was just congratulating myself on almost completing a horrid seven mile interval session when something took exception to my smug face. There was a very scary snarling noise, a sensation of being stabbed in the backside and then I was trapped by the World’s Angriest Jack Russell (yes, another one – I love them! I don’t deserve their hatred!). I stood there wondering what to do whilst WAJR danced and snapped round my legs until a gate opened and there was a kind of Jack Russell explosion when two of WAJR’s mates appeared together, thankfully, with the owner. She looked very uneasy when she saw what had happened, even more so, minutes later, when having inspected my bum and found a puncture wound, I returned to tell her about the damage. Then it was a quick shower and off to casualty. My tetanus...