HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE

First of all, I must apologize for not writing a blog last week.  I was away at a Writers' Weekend and attended a few workshops and panel discussions, all of which were very beneficial to my writing.  In my experience  most writers who have not yet hit the big time show an engaging mixture of hope and modesty about their talents.  And that's the mix you need to succeed, that and a determination made of steel that you will persist writing and submitting your work no matter how many rejections you get.  So, fired up by the people I met at the weekend, I am polishing up on my steely determination and have started a new novel.  This one is a contemporary romance and is insofar a deviation from what I usually write about but I am having fun with it and that's the main thing.

It's hard to believe that Easter is here, isn't it?  To me Easter has always meant feeling the first warmth of the sun and thinking of the promise it brings of long summer days ahead.  Yellow daffodils, primroses, snowdrops and the trees starting to bud -  all these are part of it.  This year flowers are slow to come out and face the frosts and snows, the East wind would take the skin off your face.  And yet, like life itself, even when it's hard to imagine things will ever get any better, the summer warmth will make itself felt at some stage in the not too distant future. It's a cheering thought!  As I write this the sun has peeked out from the clouds and I can imagine the flowers I've planted preening themselves in its rays.  No wonder the poets of old loved to write verses on daffodils and their "sprightly dance".  It is a feel good time of year.
 
I wish all my readers a Happy Easter and hope that you have a special time and that the sun comes out for you.

Thoughts on Mothers Day

Mothers Day, that Sunday in the year when you receive a grubby drawing made in kindergarten of a fat-cheeked stick person with red cheeks and the dedication "to the best mummy in the world" with "mummy" often being spelled with only one "m". And you swell up with pride and wonder if your tiny offspring really has got artistic potential and hope none of the other mothers will think the drawing is meant to be of you.

Or you get a sophisticated bouquet of flowers and a lovely card filled with glowing praise of your child-raising talents.  Hmm.  Doesn't seem all that long ago when you were laying down the law about staying out too late and threatening curfew to a few sullen individuals grouped around the family dining table.

All the restaurants which have been advertising "Mothers Day Specials" are booked out on the day and happy families gather together to celebrate.  As you watch them all assemble in your honour, you can't help remembering all those days when you almost had to use a police escort to get the younger members of the family to the table.  How many times did you bellow up the stairs "if you don't come now, I'm going to throw it out!"  How quickly time passes!  We should savour those kindergarten years.

It is very fitting that in the U.K. and Ireland Mothers Day should be in March when Nature is coming out of its winter sleep and the daffodils and primroses are brightening up the still brown earth in preparation for the coming summer months.  It is a month of hope for the future and of fond remembrance of the winter months and Christmas, now seeming so long ago.  A symbol of mothers' role everywhere, I like to think.

But regardless of whether your children are tiny or are fully grown with perhaps children of their own, Mothers Day is a special day.  A day when mothers everywhere are considered with affection and their little faults and foibles are forgotten.  Woman power at its best!