Blog Posts
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No, YouTube are addicted!
Hello. My name is Annette and I’m addict. It’s not what you might think. I don’t drink and I don’t abuse drugs, prescription or not. I’m addicted to YouTube and the many wonders it has shown me. I log on several times a day to see what new surprises it has in store, and oh,…
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Butter by Asako Yuzuki – Review
Manako Kajii loves to cook almost as much as she likes to eat. She dated older men and took their gifts, mainly financial, providing gourmet quality food in return. But after the death of her three gentlemen, she sits in prison, convicted for their murders. Rika Machida, a junior writer for a weekly magazine, is…
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Life … finds a way.
No, YOU grow up.
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A Yorkshire Break
My husband and I are just home from a week in Yorkshire with our daughter and our dogs. It was wonderful. We were very lucky with the weather, our accommodation — a converted cowshed dating back to 1653 — was just lovely, and our trip there and back was uneventful: the best kind of journey…
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You Are What You Eat
This short story was published in Flash Flood Journal several years ago. It is very loosely based on something said in a real life incident. You’ve got to love the internet (and friends who share the weirdness with you). Trigger warning: this story is very dark, contains bad language, low morals and pigs. Still with…
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It will grow
Whenever a woman does something drastic to her hair, there’s a reason. Here’s mine. I’ve been feeling much worse than usual over the past few months. Been so dry of mouth and eye, utterly exhausted, even by my standards, and oh, the pain. I hadn’t seen a doc since before Covid so booked a telephone…
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And The Angels Cried
I know that most people are scared of “The Witching Hour”, when both hands point in supplication to a darkened heaven, pleading to an ambivalent god for mercy, but I’ve always found the minute just before the scariest of all; the moments when you know what’s going to come but haven’t time to change the…
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What Horror Means To Me
One of my birthday presents was a kindle copy of Time Waggoner’s Writing In The Dark, a how to book on horror fiction. I’m finding it very useful so far. At the end of each chapter are helpful exercises and I thought I’d share my response to the first one: what does horror mean to…
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(Dis)Ableism
Most of you will know I have fibromyalgia/cfs. I also have osteoarthritis, IBS, loads of allergies, chronic widespread tendonitis, bursitis… I’m in pain somewhere every day. I’m not fishing for sympathy, it’s just the way it is. I recently underwent a reassessment for my entitlement to PIP and this time they accepted how difficult I…
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Relax!
I cannot relax. I do my best, I try to regularly scan my body for signs of tension and make my muscles relax but, quicker than a midnight cramp, they go back to their default state. My legs are so tense they almost stand proud of the chair and my toes are doubled over in…
