Horrid week with a top 15% High Spot!

This week has been tough for a number of reasons and I have been a bit of a 'car crash' emotionally over the past two days. Work has left me stressed and unappreciated at times and it all hit a head today when I walked out of a meeting before I either exploded with anger or broke down in a weepy puddle. We are due to go on our first ever family holiday on Friday to South West Wales and the kids are so excited, however my hubby's grandfather passed away yesterday and the funeral is on the Tuesday of our holiday...in the Isle of Man. Hubby is trying to arrange transport to get him there and back over the bank holiday which is proving very difficult. Quite an emotional week! Although I have now finished work till after the holidays, we still have our warring chickens to sort out and all the packing etc to do. Stressed is not a strong enough word!!!!

However in the midst of all this angst I received a letter today which gave me a lift and made me feel good about me for a while. I had entered the Children's Academy of Writers annual competition to write a short story for children. I had entered a lengthened and revised version of my Echoes story (the original version is on my Thirtysomethings blog). The photo above was the inspiration for the story. I did not win, neither did I get second or third, however I reached the top 300 out of 2000 entries, which apparently put me in the top 15%. The letter I received said lots of nice things such as...

"To reach the final 15% you obviously have an understanding of young people that impressed our panel of judges. This is a quality that is invaluable to a would be children's writer...your 'way with words', indicates that with a little effort your natural talent could be developed to enable you to produce work of publication standard."

Now the cynic in me could say that these are nice things to say to encourage me to do their correspondance course, however to receive a letter like this during this week in particular has been an oasis in the desert. I have not switched on my book for over a week and was beginning to get that, " Who am I kidding?" about my writing. So to have a letter that gives me these comments, personal replies apparently only sent out to the top 15% (!), meant a great deal to me and gives me hope that I might yet one day see something I have written in print with a lovely cover sitting on the bookshelves in Waterstones.

Picnic at Cardinham and Bullies!!

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves yesterday on a gloriously sunny Sunday. We had a church picnic at Cardinham Woods, which is a Forestry Commission beauty spot near us. It has a large green with inbuilt BBQ's and a river running through it (see above pic).

Apart from a small drama when my little lady's shoe became detatched from her foot and had to be rescued from the river by a kindly teenager, it was a fab day. All came home exhausted but feeling we had made the most of the sunshine.

Currently I am having to be a member of the Chicken Bullying Police. Three of our four hens have taken it upon themselves to bully the other one. They have always all got on fine, but I noticed one of them was missing quite a lot of feathers around her neck and head and she looked scrawny compared to the others. Today I caught them in the act and they were being really horrible to her, clearly terrorising the poor thing. We have not got the facilities at the moment to separate her, so we are making do with emergency plans until we can source a rabbit run to get her out and help her recover. At the moment she sits on top of the hen house and will not come down to eat or drink, so we are feeding her by hand and shutting the rest away so she can drink and peck in peace.

I know I should not create from misery, but it could make a good picture/story book about bullying. So please spare a thought for poor Belle as she recovers

Writing,Day, Fab Hubby and Spring Bank Holiday!

I love Cornwall all year round, but I particularly love spring and autumn. The wild flowers I can see when we are out and about near us are stunning. The bluebells and wild garlic are carpeting the woodlands at Respryn, near Lanhydrock and they are beautiful to behold. I found two little Cornish pixies exploring among the bluebells too! (see picture below)

We had a lovely walk on Saturday through the woodlands near us, enjoying the gorgeous spring weather and nature's bounty. I was in a particularly sunny mood as the day before my wonderful hubby had the day at home doing paperwork, and so sent me out to a very nice local cafe FOR THE DAY to write!!! I had from 10am till nearly 3pm all by myself writing and enjoying totally scrummy toasted Mexican chicken wrap for my lunch, plus numerous cups of tea. I wrote over 3,000 words amd completed a chapter and a half. I was also able to do some research for my book on early ninteenth century clothing as well as mining shifts and jobs and the households of bal maidens in the ninteenth century. I sat with my book, my new notebook plus memory stick and my imagination for a whole day. It was bliss!!!! I need now to keep my momentum going as I fear work will overtake me again this week. However I wanted to share my lovely walk, my fab day writing and exhort the praises of my hubby who child managed all day so I could do it!!!!