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Showing posts with the label hobbies

When Life Gives you Lemons....

I was catching up on my Face book groups the other day and someone had asked the question, if you blog and work how do you fit it all in and it got me thinking how do I fit it all in and am I achieving what I set out to? Well as the old saying goes - "When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade" 1. Day Job As an independent author I still need a 'day job' to earn a living, I'm not in a position yet where the money I earn as a novelist is enough to cover my expenses,  I am working towards that but for now I need to support my writing by working. I'm a Personal Assistant in the Fire Service, I'm lucky in terms of my job is flexible.  A lot of writers and bloggers starting out are in jobs where the time they are in the office is set and unchangeable.  I'm lucky that mine is flexible.  Having this flexibility allows me to plan my days effectively. Most days I'm at my desk by 7.30,  depending on what the day holds which being an emergency servic

Doris Day Vintage Film Club - Fiona Harper - Review

Having read Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams last Christmas I was interested in reading this offering from Fiona Harper.  Gladly I wasn't disappointed,  I do admit it's taken me a while to read this book, not because of the book or writing simply due to life getting in the way of reading time! Doris Day Vintage Film Club By Fiona Harper The story follows Travel Agent Claire Bixby, (I admit I felt an affinity due to the name) who plans romantic trips for her clients and works close to the Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams from the previous novel. She is also friends with Peggy from the previous novel who crosses over in to this novel,  filling the same role in this novel as the first.  She's the type of friend everyone would love to have and I enjoyed getting to know her better as she was a nice aside to the main story in both Hopes and Dreams and Doris Day.  I wonder if she will get a break out novel of her own one day. Claire has had a previous bad relationship which

Not So Hot Pursuit

This week’s movie from the limited choice of the lull between popular release weeks and holiday period was the Reece Witherspoon/Sophia Vigara road movie Hot Pursuit.   Now I went in not expecting much from this movie and well that’s pretty much what I got.   The story is nothing new it’s a typical point A to point B movie with standard roadblocks along the way.         Bad Cops / Good ‘Overachiever’ Cop no one takes seriously            Revenge plot            Cinderella sub plot I’ve seen Reece Witherspoon do a number of great movies (Cruel Intentions, The Man in the Moon, Walk the Line, Legally Blonde)   and some not so great ones (Vanity Fair, Four Christmases) this one goes in to the “Not so Great” Category.   I usually like Witherspoon, she has great comic timing and can pull off a whole range of characters who at their core are all inherently likeable (Sweet Home Alabama) only this one was just well bland.   The accent she used was harsh and cold and did

Movie Night - Mission Impossible Rogue Nation

So Thursday night was movie night, which mainly involved indulging in a Venti Starbucks English Breakfast Tea with a dash of milk and a delicacy from their muffin and biscuit range (currently the biscuit of choice is a Nutella cookie) and on this occasion some action filled adventure with the IMF Team.   Now I must admit, I’m not a huge Tom Cruise fan, I think in his career I maybe like three of his movies, namely ·        Outsiders ·        Rock of Ages ·        Top Gun Other than that I can pretty much take or leave the rest.   When it comes to the Mission Impossible series, I wasn’t overly impressed with the first 3 movies.   I didn’t like the way they made Jim Phelps a bad guy.   I was a child of the 80’s and saw the original TV series on re-run and the idea of taking that character and making him the complete opposite to how I perceived him kind of rubbed.   By the time we got to Mission Impossible 5 and the introduction of Jeremy Renner as Brandt and the de

Death by Desert!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin So I seem to be going from weekend to weekend in these posts!  I promise I do other things but it's just the way events have unfolded! Yesterday, Saturday again, I got the chance to catch up with a couple of my girlfriends and have a nice meal and a killer desert! It's hard sometimes to see your friends when your working, they're working, your trying to fit a million and one things in to life so these moments to me are very precious.   Any way, as it was two of my friends birthdays recently we decided to have a catch up at the local pub and have a nice meal.  The meal was great, but the deserts were amazing! I had an Eton Mess Sunday - believe me you would have your calories for the whole day in this thing.  It was a tower of ice cream, raspberries, meringue and cream which took an age to get through!  my Friend went for the Chocolate Brownie Death by Chocolate and Sunday and my other friend went for Lemon Pie Sunday.  I think by th

Weekend Who Done It

So if you're reading my other blog, "My Life as a Writer" you're already following the path I take when writing my novels, this blog is an attempt to illustrate what else I do and love in life. Where to start, well I might as well start off with this past weekend as I indulged in something I do love. I have always had a love of movies and theatre, so on Saturday I indulged my theatrical love and attended the Theatre to see "And Then There Were None" (Agatha Christie). Now this not only plays to my love of theatre but also my love of Christie as a writer, in this 125th Anniversary year her work is still as entertaining and edge of the seat as it was then. The show, which is touring the UK stars Paul Nicholas, Verity Rushworth, Frazer Hines, Colin Buchanan and Ben Nealon, and follows the plot of her famous novel. On a secluded island a group of strangers come together having each received a mysterious invitation.  Following the path of a children