Tuesday 21 June 2011

Why Me!!

Well everyone is back at school including the nits, which my lovely daughter Ellie managed to bring home for a home visit again this week. The poor thing was itching like mad so I got out the nit comb and out came the screams of "I can run faster than you mum so you can't get me with that." as she stomped off to her room for what felt like the one hundredth time on Sunday. After screaming and flouncing and threats of holding her down or tying her to a chair (honestly I didn't) she let me comb through her hair. Tears streaming down her face and her brother Lewis laughing as loudly as he could (me worrying what the neighbours must think) we found the little blighters hiding amongst her shoulder length hair. After only 5 minutes she suddenly flounces off again as I had pulled to hard on a knot and the screaming starts again "Why me mum. I don't cuddle anyone or put my head near anyone else's".
"Well you must do Ellie they can't fly and although I always thought they could jump they can't so you must be near somebody who has them"
Back to the chair we go under a dark cloud and lots of swearing from me, we take our positions and the race is on can the nits and their parents run faster than me and the comb of doom, yes they can. After 10 minutes of coaxing Ellie's hair through the comb I give up and throw the comb across the room and demand that the nit killing solution be found. Frantic searching high and low reveals that the solution is where it should be in the medicine cupboard. Who would have thought to put it there I mean there is Calpol at the side of my bed for those nights when little visitors come knocking on my door, the pain killers are hidden inside my chest a drawers and the cough medicine is in the food cupboard.
Coaxing Ellie back to the chair for the next round of nit destruction I finally try a bit of bribery and offer chocolate if she is good and sits still while I put the glop onto her hair. Bargaining now seems a real good option now for Ellie as she pipes up "How much chocolate to I get for sitting here bored out of my brain"
"One small bar"
"Not a chance mum I want at least 2 or 1 medium sized one"
"But Ellie if I don't put this stuff on your hair you will give everyone nits"
"How when they gave them to me first. Can you get nits if you already have them? I want chocolate."
As she makes another dash for her bedroom where Lewis is hiding behind her door to call her Nitty Nora and make her jump. I slump in the chair and wonder where my handbook on how to get children to behave has gone. I still have dinner to cook and get their stuff ready for tomorrow, as I sit in the chair a huge scream goes up (we live in a flat so I worry what the neighbours must think again) as Lewis jumps from behind the door Ellie is a wreck sitting on the floor her head in her hands sobbing, seeing my chance I pick up the bottle of nit killer and go to her pouring said glop on her head whilst soothing her with "wait till her next goes to the toilet then you can get him" (not very motherly I admit).
Job done glop on head nits slowly dieing Lewis laughing on the floor at Ellie's hysteria and me rushing to the bathroom to wash my hands so that I am ready for the next battle to begin.
Love Jo xx


Wednesday 15 June 2011

Bluethroat Morning

<span class=
Genre/Form:Psychological fiction
Fiction
luethroat Morning (Bloomsbury paperbacks)">A literary mystery that explores the troubled relationship between women and their writing.

Alison Bliss, world-famous model and author of critically acclaimed Sweet Susan, walks into the sea on a "bluethroat morning". She becomes a greater icon in death than in life and the Norfolk village of Glaven, where she spent her final days, is soon a place of pilgrimage.

Six years later, her husband Harry, a schoolteacher, is still haunted by her suicide and faithful to her memory-until he meets nineteen-year-old Helen. The two begin an intense affair which is secretly darkened by the past. Harry is attracted by Helen's uncanny resemblance to Arabella-his great-grandfather's second wife-on whom Alison was basing her new book. Little was known about Arabella, except that she had drowned herself in the sea by Glaven. . . where Alison had traveled, only to mysteriously follow in her tragic footsteps.

I have had real trouble reading this book as Harry Bliss just seems to be chasing ghosts. I have to be honest and say I haven't actually finished reading this book as it was such hard work.

Harry is a teacher who's wife was a model who then suffered from anorexia and then becomes a writer but has issues that relate to her mother who was a poet. It seemed to me that she was a confused stranger in her own body and was trying to be what her mother failed to be. Harry is a completely in love with her even though he falls for his best friends daughter. I found it very hard to imagine Harry as anything but needy. He needed to know what happened to his wife in the two weeks before she died, he needed the press to be hot on his heels and he needed Helen to need him.

There are bits in the book which are Alison's notes in a note book that Harry gets from Erne Hingham who is Harry's grandfathers step-brother, although Harry doesn't find out the connection until late in the book and the connection between Erne and Alison. Erne's mother is Arabella the 2ND wife of Harry's great grandfather. Arabella also kills herself just as Alison Bliss does by walking into the sea naked.

The Story seemed disjointed to me one minute we are in a grave yard and Harry is making love to Helen then the next you are in an old house with Erne who is going back in time to when he was a little boy which appears to be a moment of senility normally halfway through him telling Harry about Arabella then you are reading Alison's notebook which is just a lot of how she feels a failure.

I really didn't like this book and would recommend you read something else.

Love Jo xx



Thursday 9 June 2011

One of those days!

I'm having a moment today when I think I have done something wrong but really I don't think I have, you see it started the week before last when I phoned a friend who runs her own business a nice little shop and told her my plans for the half term. I know she doesn't have much time as the shop takes up a lot of her time and when the children are at school I help out in my husbands business so when he is busy so am I. Any way right from the time Ellie was born I have always been available to see her on her day off no matter what day it is and it used to change quite a bit, nearly 5 years ago she took over the business and has struggled with it. Now most of the time she is very generous and spends a lot of money on the children and takes them out during the holidays but this holiday we had to go shopping for new clothes for the children on the Wednesday and on the Thursday we went out to Worthing with my sister. You see although me and my sister don't live far apart we don't see each other as often as I would like because of her dog. Last November her dog Luna bit my husband quite badly in front of my 2 children and because hubby is a nice man he decided that the dog should live and have training but the children aren't allowed in her house any more.

Now back to the original story. I phoned my friend and told her we would be busy on the Thursday (her day off) and we could meet up with her on the Tuesday if she was free. Unfortunately she kind of stropped and quickly said that was convenient for her and that Thursday was her only day off. I apologised and said that we would have all the summer to do different things and normally I put off things so that we can see her, but she wouldn't really talk to me properly. Its her birthday on Monday and I asked her in the phone call what I could buy for her but she refused to say and quickly put the phone down. Now my dilemma is do I make the first move and phone her and ask again what she wants for her birthday? Or do I wait for her to make the first move? Or do I just except that both of us now have busy life's and are moving in completely different circles and leave it at that?
I am sure that we all have friends that we still get along with but aren't in our social groups or have the same interests as we do. This lady is one of them we use to have things in common but now we don't seem to have. She still lives at home with her parents and doesn't have children or a boyfriend and doesn't go out much really except for aerobics on a Monday and the occasional meal with the people she works with. Let me know what you think I am just not sure what to do. xx

Monday 6 June 2011

Twilight By Peter James


First off please forgive me as this is my first ever review since I was at school anyway.

Right so here is the blurb from the back:

Three muffled thuds ring from the partially filled grave of the newly wed girl. Only the verger hears them and he dismisses the noise as his imagination. But over the next few days others also hear faint sounds. An exhumation order is granted. Reporter Kate Hemingway sneaks into the small suburban churchyard when the coffin is opened, and the scene she witnesses is so horrific she can never forget it. As she starts work on the story, Kate finds herself caught up in a sinister and macabre cover-up. At the centre is a respected anaesthetist who has a secret obsession. He believes people can exist outside their bodies and that if he can prove it he will provide the answer to the question that has haunted mankind through the ages: is there life after death? Nothing - and no one - is going to stand in the way of his driving ambition . .

I have read Peter James before and love the way he writes so I was really looking forward to this book and the fact it was one of his earlier books pleased me as I have only read his Roy Grace series.
If, like me, you have ever been worried about being buried alive this might not be the book for you. It had me on the edge of my seat waiting for the next page to be turned.
Kate Hemmingway was a believable journalist who knew something was up and was going to find out at any cost what had happened, even breaking in to a Funeral Home to find out the small details but puts her life in jeopardy by being so determined. She consults with a medium who tells her to be careful although the true meaning of the messages don't get through to Kate until near the end when she ends up in hospital.
Harvey Swire is the anaesthetist who after a near death experience of his own, believes that there is life after death. The way Swire goes about trying to prove this is very sinister and seemed to me to be quite plausible.
The book keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish, the end is a really good twist that I would never of guest. I would recommend this book to anyone who like to read horror or a good thriller.

One final point, before you bury or cremate me make sure I am dead first!