Angel Jem's City Cottage

No, not a real baby, of course, but a book baby. I've been absent for the past few weeks because I've been incubating a little project all of my own. It's quite time intensive, this writing business and, I have to say, I think Virginia Woolf had an easy time of it with no children, no guinea pigs and no full time work to get in the way.It took me at least a week to get the first page written, and a few good weeks after that to finish the whole book. Can I introduce you to 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way ? It's a hygge book, of course, but one written specifically from a British rather than a Danish point of view. A book for the hygge-lover who has read Meik Wiking's Little Book of Hygge or Bronte Aurell's Essence of Hygge , loved the idea and is now sitting thinking "Well, that's all very well, but how do I hygge in the UK? We don't have short hours, a good work/life balance or decent Danish pastries in my home town." You know, when...

Oh my Gosh! It feels like I haven't posted a wind up for ages! My little City Cottage is in need of an Autumn tidy up and a clear out of ideas and attitudes. After all, this is where my friends are, not my followers. Here's my wind up; What am I reading this week? I'm reading every hygge book going; I have about 7 so far and another one on order for the end of October. The more I read, the more I like and the more convinced I am that hygge is what we do naturally; that all I need to do as a Hygge Ambassador is send people your way; all the homemaking, caring, crafting, living that you do and share on the interweb; that's hygge. Apart from a mass of Hygge books, I read This House is Haunted by John Boyne. It's a good old-fashioned ghost story in the tradition of Susan Hill's The Woman in Black or Henry James' Turn of the Screw . Eliza Caine loses her Father and takes a job on impulse at a deserted house in Norfolk. You could have told her it wasn...

I keep writing posts at blogger, and changing them, and having multiple posts show up in my post shelf, some of which are on the blog and some of which aren't. I am not a happy bunny. And it's not just this blog; I run Peter's blog on Blogger as well, and Sarah has started a blog to run alongside her business GCSE project. And they are all playing the same game with me; every blinking draft I write gets stored on the post index. I need to take a closer look at the settings. There must be something I've fiddled with. Anyhoo. On to business. How are you all? I am well, thank you, and working hard. We have a case management system which I haven't been able to use until today... and now I have a log in and all of a sudden Peter's come over all efficient and telling me to do stuff like payment letters and requests for medical records. Honestly, you'd think he pays me to do his donkey work...... oh, wait... yes, actually he does. And the promise of a cut of a...

'Why I write' Blog Hop; I hijacked the Hop from Coal Valley View.  She did ask for volunteers.  It's going around the blogoverse, and different people have been thinking about it. CJ at Above the River wrote about her writing here,  and passed the baton on to Leanne at Today's Stuff , while people whose blogs I have never read have written their thoughts at Miss and Misters , A Colourful Life  and Clairey Hewitt from Australia. I guess that is the point of a blog hop; you never know where you'll end up or who you'll visit. New friends waiting to be made, new ideas, places, lives to be learned about. I love blogs just because so many people just write to communicate. And we get to see people who, if they lived in the next town, would undoubtedly invite us for coffee and a really good walnut cake but can't because a continent and the deepest ocean in the world lie in between. More contact makes for a smaller world. I like the global village. Fancy a cuppa? ...

In another one of my alter egos I occasionally write articles for my parish magazine. I go to St Peter's Church Woolton. It's a nice middle class church in a nice middle class suburb of Liverpool. Its biggest claim to fame is that the church hall is where John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time . There's a plaque and all sorts of tourists, mostly Japanese and American, come by to go Wow! Also, Eleanor Rigby is buried in the church yard. Apparently John Lennon had lots of time to hang around in church yards. Who knew? Any way, at 2 this morning inspiration struck. It's always 2am, never 2pm. Still small voice, I expect, the one I can't hear during the day for the TV, the kids, the husband asking for his tea.... Anyway, I am proud of this article and so, though I hate to inflict a much longer post than usual on you I wanted to give you the sneek preview. I've sent this off for the November issue of the Mag', so you really are reading it a month a...