Angel Jem's City Cottage

I've been busy the past few months again, writing a book on happiness. And when I've not been writing, I've been crocheting, decorating, cooking, cleaning (a lot of cleaning) and all the other detritus of a woman's life that takes up the time and makes one tired. I'm fully expecting nobody to be reading this blog by now. Taking almost 6 months off does rather lose one readers, doesn't it? I can understand. I find I rarely read blogs now, being seduced by the quick posts on Twitter, the picture heavy Instagram or the cosy companionship of Facebook groups full of hygge-loving people, or readers, crafters, makers. I think I have ignored myself in the form of Angel Jem. This was never about relating to people, but a diary for me. A diary of my life, and the issues in it. So, here's an update: 1. Christmas came and went. It was lovely, and we had a quiet family Christmas before leaving the day after Boxing Day to visit Salisbury. I will never go away over Ch...

I haven't posted here or on How to Hygge since last Monday. Last Monday. Golly, around about 9.30pm last Monday, what a peaceful, innocent time that was. Let me say right now that none of my family were anywhere near Manchester Arena last Monday night, but several friends and acquaintances were and several friends of friends, including a girl whose friends go to Sarah's school. I've taken the week to think how to frame a response, how to express my thoughts and.... I don't think there are words to say, no neat twist of phrase that can capture the emotions. Anger, sadness, concern, hope, thankfulness, love, empathy, pain, worry, hope again, relief, anger at someone else, guilt, happiness, love and finally hope. Manchester has been through hell and back this week, although for some people they may well still be in hell. What has given me hope this week is the response of people from across the world to the atrocity. I am especially proud of my home city, Liverp...

I have been busy over the past couple of weeks. I think life (for me) seems to get faster the older I get. Certainly, I look back at the days of at-home motherhood with a yearning I didn't expect to feel. When the most I got done in a week was 2 or 3 days supply, and they weren't guaranteed. Work is pretty full time, of course, so I find myself trying to fit a life into 2 days of the weekend. And since I love me a good bit of downtime and solitude, I find I'm fighting the urges to rest and relax or to get up and do. So I feel very Jekyll and Hyde. I'm either calm efficiency and getting the house cleared well, or collapsed on the sofa, remote control in hand, guinea pig on stomach and bewailing the days when I was able to watch daytime TV alone. I have no idea how full time workers fit in housework. I know that possibly before I began full time work I should have cleared the house, so that I could now consider getting a cleaner in to do a bit for me. As it is, I ...

It's been so long since I posted a wind up!! I can hardly remember the categories. I'll make them up for today. Reading I'm reading ... well, nothing in particular. I was supposed to read Ben Elton's Two Brothers for Book Club on Monday, but I missed it due to the funeral and didn't have to admit that I hadn't actually finished it. I like it so far. Next month's book is The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. Fortunately I read that a few years ago, and it's short, so I might just quickly read it and then finish the other one. Making Apart from a mess, I'm still supposed to be making the hygge shawls from the Scheepjes CAL this year. Time in the evenings seems to have been at a premium, so my CAL sits in a corner, unloved, unwanted and undone. This weekend, I promise, I'll get my mojo back and go for it hell for leather. If I could just catch up with the embroidery part.... Watching On TV we're still watching Game of Throne...

6 weeks since last I wrote to you. 6 weeks of work and life and work and life. I've done nothing and yet done so much, been nowhere and travelled to Russia. Lived and breathed beyond living and breathing. How to Hygge The British Way has taken over my life to an extent: I write there nearly every day, I have a pattern, a routine of books, recipes and random thoughts that seems to work. I love it, how could I not, it's so me, this home and safety and love that hygge generates, that I want to write for it as often as I must. I actually have my posts planned and ready to write when I set down. This leads me to feel guilty. Because Angel Jem is still me, still who I am, still who I seek to be. And yet, poor Angel Jem gets less and less time. I could just replicate the posts here. I could just cut, paste, change a little and post again, but that feels wrong. I can't even claim to separate the areas out because there are so many overlaps between my personal journal which...

There are so many people eager to see the back of this year. I must admit, I am one of them. I just feel trapped under a large boulder at the moment. No one thing, but lots of little things, just getting to me, making me feel on edge, worried, stressed. And i don't do stress well. To the wind up. What am I reading this week? I am back on the Hardy again. It struck me that I only have this novel and then Tess and Jude the Obscure to read and I will be finished with the novels. So, The Woodlanders it is, almost exclusively until I am finished and then... well, probably some light romance or a good old murder for Christmas. What have I watched this week? I watched the first part of Rillington Place with Tim Roth playing Christie earlier this week. we have the last two parts saved up to watch, so later on this week may be a space to watch them. We also have the interview episode of the Apprentice on tomorrow. I love that episode, every year, because it lays the candida...

I had a whole afternoon in Manchester with my beautiful daughter. The Christmas Markets are on,  and Sarah's never been. We had a good time, not least because there was a goodly amount of stopping for refreshment. Sarah's happy as long as there's a bookshop on the itinerary, and I was warmed by gluhwein and a pint of Kronenberg. How tired were we? Sarah slept on the way home, just after saying she'd had a brilliant day, and could we go again next year! My new friend.... Yes, I have what it takes!!! My final Chase from the beginning of the year is in the new book!!! Prize fund was actually £60,000 between 3. I have had such a good year after being on TV and radio. Being named in a book is the icing on the cake! I had a mint tea and a portuguese custard tart as my afternoon treat. The French macarons caught our eyes... and several came home with us! I did promise I wouldn't post a picture.... but I expect I forgot. Hi Sarah! You are too bea...

Have you ever had one of those weeks? I don't need to ask; of course you have. And December is the worst for being busy, racing, living by lists, having too much to do and too little time to do it. Mr AJ ( Peter Kneale Solicitor ) has an exam on January 6th. It's about Roman Law and he has me typing up revision notes. For the past two weeks I have been over familiar with the paterfamilias, with the law on legacy, inheritance, the potestas, the ius civile and all sorts of obscure things that I never thought I'd need to know about. I don't need to know about them, truly, but I type slowly and one word at a time, the same way I read, and so typing becomes a form of learning, because I have to read and make sense of it as well as just follow his voice. Add to that a family still heart-broken over the death of a cute guinea pig; a solicitor's firm still wondering what government changes will do to our business and those across the country; and teenage children s...

Oh, if only I could sit and watch the coverage of the US election all night long. I have a friend who lectures on American Studies and she has the perfect excuse to sign off work tomorrow and sit up through the night. It's professional interest. My interest is far more personal and a lot less extrinsic. I just think the US election is such a big thing for the world... after all, the USA is the Top Dog of the Western world at the moment, biggest in size, in self-belief, in bombast... and I like the place! Who ever gets to be POTUS and leader of the Free World is inheriting a world full of woe and sorrow. From what I've seen, if they jump one way we get a leader who will roll up the sleeves, look forward and get to work to build a world that benefits the US but also helps her allies to climb up the ladder as well. Jump the other way and.... well, the Mexico Wall may not be the only barrier built between America and the world, just the most physical one. It woul...

Yesterday we went for a rare family day out. We are buried deep in revision and pain at school at the moment, so grabbing a glorious sunny day and escaping seemed like a good idea. We decided (ok, I decided) that we would go and look at a city I have often gone past but never into. We went to Lancaster; if you travel north on the M6 you very often pass the University, but it's not a place I remember going to. We didn't see that much yesterday, either, as we had plans for the afternoon. We did go up to the castle, which was a prison for many years. I couldn't resist getting the lads to stand under the sign! And the guy at the gate in the photo above is a prison guard... really! The Pendle witch trials were held here, and other famous trials. There is a castle tour, but we were on a mission and didn't feel like it yesterday. Fortunately Peter's football team play in Lancaster during the season, so I am on a promise. WE'd gone specially to see the ...

The week after Ted died was a hard one. We kept finding little things we'd tried, we had to clean out the medicines she'd had. We kept asking was there anything else we could have done, any action we could have taken, anything at all that would have helped. The vet had said no, that these things happen, but it was amazing how the guilt grabbed us. We were busy that week with Christian Aid and work, so our evenings passed delivering envelopes and planning office moves (don't ask; the Saga of Virgin is for another day) By the following Saturday we were slowing down. Sarah had a bad cold, Peter was out for the day and although I was supposed to take Sarah to badminton we cried off. We went for a coffee and to buy her material for a school project. I swear that was all. Just a Costa and a yard of material. But we called into Pets at Home, just to look for hay or bedding or... well, any old excuse. And there was a little girl guinea pig there, alone, all alone. And such a pi...