Author Archives: juliachalkley

We get around to December and all our preparations for Christmas look like a siege. We declare the last shopping day before Christmas, the last trip out, the last set of Christmas cards written and posted. After that, we close the doors against the world and don’t go back out into the traffic again. We’veContinue reading “Not Going Out”

After a frantic few weeks of organisation, our OU writers’ group met up at Cromer in the last weekend of November 2022. Six of us arrived at West Cottage; the other three turned up on our screens thanks to Zoom. For the first time since 2015, we had all nine of our group gathered together.Continue reading “Cromer”

Our latest trip out was to Ely Cathedral. It’s the third time we’ve been there, and every time that first sight of the cathedral is a Wow moment. All those miles of flat land and then that enormous pale building on the skyline. The first visit was for my graduation from the OU with aContinue reading “Called to the Table”

As the saying goes; ‘When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s easy to forget that you went in there to drain the swamp.’ I started this blog two years ago after a (more successful) writing friend told us about ways to advertise your writing. I write for fun, but the idea of startingContinue reading “Drain the Swamp”

Last year we planted eight melon vines and were rewarded with two melons. So I planted the last of our melon seeds with more hope than expectation this year. I ended up with fifteen surviving melon plants and no-one else offering to take them in, so I planted the lot in the polytunnel. Laws ofContinue reading “Harvest – the fruits”

As a young child, I sat through school assemblies where September meant singing the hymn ‘Harvest Home’. Girl Guides’ church parades involved bringing something to add to the pile of harvest ‘stuff’ at the altar – the lucky kids with a fruit tree in the back yard brought an apple, some of the parents tookContinue reading “Harvest – the seeds”

We had 24 hours to spare before picking up our cats from the cattery, and my original thought – a night’s stargazing in Northumberland’s dark sky reserve – was scuppered by the almost-full moon. Instead, we went to Ironbridge. I’ve been there in July of this year, but again, himself was left behind to lookContinue reading “Iron Rules”

Back in March, I reported on a trip to Melrose in Scotland. The intention then was to let himself see where I’d been with my OU writers’ group, and to finish a long-held ambition to climb the Eildon hill where Thomas the Rhymer was said to have followed the Queen of Elfland before being takenContinue reading “Ambitions”

I may have some followers who don’t agree with the idea of monarchy, but I do. It isn’t the people involved, but the system. I knew I would outlive Queen Elizabeth the Second (barring serious health problems or accidents) but yesterday’s news of the Queen’s death was a shaker. My passport, the notes in myContinue reading “Kingdom”