PPS. "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

Samuel Beckett

ps. Just googled. Apparently the murder rate spikes around full moons...

Hello. I'm writing again now I'm slightly less mad. The full moon is on the wane, hey ho! Let me tell you a secret: I am a genuine lunatic. I know, it sounds all a tad eighteenth century, but the fact is, I do end up a teensy bit insane when the moon is full. I don't really want to delve into the spooky New Age witchy theory as to why this is the case (if there is a spooky New Age witchy theory - probably, hmmm...might google it after this), but now I have a lunar phases app on my smart phone and a half-full bottle of St John's Wort tablets, so at least I can dose myself up in readiness these days and not succumb totally to the bedlam.
So, I've been hearing/reading the odd thing recently about how important failure is. That it's a good thing to face the 'dark night of the soul' alone, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, etc. That we should all learn to 'fail better' as I think Beckett said (probably need to google that as well)? I quite like this philosophy (who wouldn't like the reassurance that being a loser is a good thing?) BUT this morning when, after hours of trying, Son & I still couldn't get Minecraft to download and what's more, I couldn't get the lawnmower to start, I have to say that I no longer gave a stuff about the opportunity to develop and learn through the experience of failure. I just wanted the blooming things to work. Furthermore, I didn't want my personal 'dark night of the soul' journey to be through the wastelands of mechanical and geeky frustration.
However, I suppose I did learn a few things through today's experience:
1. Geeky forums sometimes give valid advice
2. The phone number for the grounds maintenance chaps
3. Tesco sells sugar-free chocolate

Hope your day was less frustrating than mine xxx

Alright my lovely, how are things in your neck of the woods? Here, we're part way through the scary old kitchen refurb. I've managed to miss most of it by being in Devon and London respectively, but we couldn't stay away forever, so here we are, eating pizza in front of the telly on paper plates (I'm quite enjoying this refurb lark - at least there's no washing up, and further more, as the workmen are still about, there's no point in cleaning the house, because they'll only cause more dust tomorrow, so hardly any housework for me, yay). It's all good, although feeling a little skint due to all the fast food we've been forced to live off recently - and a bit porky, too (not helped by comparisons with my newly-slinky sister, who had the flu this winter and dropped about 10kg - and she's just retrained as a fitness instructor, so she's irritatingly toned as well). So, after catching up on the laundry, the next stop on the avoid-the-kitchen-refurb-tour will be Dorset, so long as the mystery machine doesn't pack up on us. I'm taking it to the nice garage men tomorrow for diagnostics to find out exactly what the flashing light that comes on when we do over three-thousand-revs actually means. Hope it's not too dire, or son's new laptop and the girls' tablets will have to be returned...
Oh, I didn't get the creative writer job. Hey ho. But you know, it would have been a little stressful starting a new job this week, in the middle of the hols and the kitchen refurb, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.
Right, I'm going to drink my tea and watch Scooby Doo, now. Take care x

So, how would you feel if I started posting short stories on this site? Or should I start up a new blog for fiction? What d'you reckon? x

Finished writing my book. l know, again! I'm hoping this is the final draft, although l do still have to run the spill chocker, and the even more irritating grammar checker. But it's done! Now l can spend all day tomorrow gutting the kitchen in prep for Ghengis the chippy. The Avon Lady says her kitchen looks very nice, so perhaps the marauders won't be too bad. I'm off to drink a celebratory dram and dream happy dreams about book signings and three-figure publishing deals... ;)

You know how there's always something to moan about? Like, the traffic, or the wierd Saharan smog, or the stupid amount of spellings your child has suddenly remembered they have to learn by tomorrow morning. Yes, life is a teensy bit annoying. However, when I teach my Wednesday ESOL classes, my life is often flung into very sharp perspective. One student, for example (whose husband is working towards a PhD here), is from Aleppo in Syria and has no contact with her family - the only means she has of finding out whether or not they're still alive is by looking online for the death notices. Today I discovered that an Iraqui friend of another student had to leave her one-day-old baby behind to take up her PhD place here. She's now half way through her research, and although she Skypes her (now) two-and-a-half year old, she has not been able to see or hold her little girl since she was a day-old newborn. Both these examples are from relatively wealthy, middle class women. If it's like that for them, imagine the sacrifices that the poor and ill-educated are having to make to try to build a better life for their families?
So I've decided that today I'm not going to get huffy with my squabbling children or whinge about the disruption my kitchen refurbishment will cause, or feel a bit droopy about not seeing my husband all week, and just keep my trap shut and feel blooming lucky that they're here with me, and that we're all safe.
TTFN x