The Decluttering Queen

Book News:

This week I've been delighted that Martin and The Wolf gained a 4-star review at Goodreads - many thanks, Chris. Tuluscan Six and The Time Circle received a 4.5 star review at Jessewave Reviews, so thank you to Val for that.

Meanwhile, Tommy's Blind Date has been doing well, with a review at Tam's Reads (scroll down to view), and two 5-star reviews at Goodreads, one from Lisa and one from Stephanie, so a big thank you to you both! And, for the blink of an eye, The Delaneys and Me found itself at No 40 in the Amazon charts but has dropped out now.

Finally, in this section, K and I have been parsing the verb to Kindle, and have decided it's an irregular verb: I Kindle; you don't have a Kindle; he/she/it doesn't know what a Kindle is ... Really, I'm loving it.

My latest meditations are:


Meditation 430
To question God
with raw honesty

is better
than a thousand pleasant lies

told in the secret passages
of your heart.


Meditation 431
Sow in the field
of desire

and reap
a harvest of death;

sow in the field
of kindness

and reap
a harvest of life.


Meditation 432
A whisper from the sea
seven times softer
than the salty air
you breathe.

When the dark clouds dance
and the wind sings,
run before the promise
of rain, rejoicing.

Life News:

Well, it's been inevitable really, and certainly since the beginning of September when it all went horribly wrong, but K and I have this week now officially withdrawn from the flat-buying disaster and have, in a brief email to them and their solicitors, wished the vendors luck in whatever they decide to do with their flat from now on. Well, a former boss of mine once told me - and he was right - always to end a quarrel with courtesy so that is what we have attempted to do. Time to lick our wounds, take a deep breath and move on, once our solicitor's bill is paid, of course!

With this in mind, we've been continuing to paint and declutter our flat ready for potential buyers, and have managed to clear the place of nine bags of recyclable clothes and two bin-bags of clothes not even charity shops would take. We have also thrown away a lot of our old video tapes (though I can't bring myself to part with all my Star Trek ones - no way!) and have therefore all but filled three wheelie-bins full of rubbish again. And the binmen aren't collecting rubbish until Tuesday week as we're on a fortnightly cycle so Lord knows where I'll be putting the old/unwanted food leftovers ... Help!

We have also given at least one coat of paint to everything in the hallway that needs lightening up, apart from the skirting board as we need to take the carpet up for that. And I have washed the spare room walls where I can get to them between the bookcases ready for giving that a coat of paint too. There'll be more stuff to throw away from the spare room but some of that is a council tip job so I think K and I will have to tackle that together.

In the midst of all this, I've also had my regular hospital appointment with the lovely Alli, and we've now decided that I'll be coming off the HRT to try to avoid the need for another operation to take my right ovary out, as it's not very good really. Poor thing, I'm quite fond of it, you know - I think it's called George - and I'd like to try to save it. But I am a bit worried as to what it might do in terms of my mood swings, which the HRT was helping a lot with, so I will have to try to keep a close eye on how I am (not easy when I could be either screaming with rage and brandishing the nearest weaponry or weeping like a klutz all over the dining room table, and sometimes both!...) and keep taking the St John's Wort which is also marvellous for my happiness levels. We'll see.

So, thank goodness for a night out on Tuesday with the lovely Jane and Tanya, the latter of whom I'd not seen for ages so it was great to catch up. The French restaurant Jane chose ( Cote in Guildford) was fabulous too and the food top-notch though we were all puzzled as to why there was a choice of having your mushroom soup either hot or cold. Yuk! The French are a mysterious folk indeed. We're also at that age where none of us can read the menu unless it's at arm's length, which caused great amusement to our fellow diners. Ah well. We're not getting any younger, you know ...

Anne Brooke