Sum up Sunday

How’s your week been? I’d love to hear your sum-ups in 25 words or less. Here’s mine:

No drive cataract eyes

Cancel holidays (again)

Write, stay positive

Badminton Flower Show

Bus, tram, bus

Kind of day

Watch football.

Flowers, flowers, flowers

Flaunt it Friday

Home grown

This week I am really pleased at how wonderful the produce from my small garden is. Delicious new potatoes, enough mini cucumbers for us and our neighbours, mint, rocket … It’s very satisfying to eat food you’ve grown yourself. Fresh blueberries every morning with breakfast is a real treat.

What are you pleased with this week?

Nev, the main character in my children’s book, The Clocker, picks veggie leaves from his garden to give to his hens. My Books

Wordy Wednesday

Whether you love or hate sport, you’d be hard pressed not to have noticed that both Wimbledon and the football World Cup are currently playing. With that in mind, I have two words this week.

In tennis, the word love relates not to romantic love but a score of zero – she was 15-love down. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin comes from play for love, that is for the love of the game. Folk etymology also links the word with the French, l’oeuf, referring to a similarity in shape to an egg and a zero.

Moving on to football, I do enjoy seeing all the strips from different countries playing in The World Cup. This made me wonder why it’s called a strip, meaning the identifying kit worn by members of a sports team. The Oxford English Dictionary says this possibly comes from the idea of the clothes that players strip down to.

Ready to watch the football

Did you know that, in my children’s book, The Clocker, the main character makes up his own words? My Books

Sum up Sunday

How has your week been? I’d be pleased to hear your sum-up – in 25 words or less. Here’s mine:

A gentle breeze

A kiss of rain

Harsh heat dispersed

Cuddle cute cats

Sing along with

The Jersey Boys

A night at the theatre: Jersey Boys

Flaunt it Friday

It’s Friday again and time to reflect on achievements, or things I’m pleased about this week. I’d love to hear your Flaunt it Friday too.

I’ll admit it, I’m not someone who finds it easy to ask something of others; offering comes much easier. This makes the task of promoting my children’s book, The Clocker, a challenge. It’s not something you do just once either; it’s an ongoing process. I find it easy to decide it’s not worth asking when, the reality is, I don’t find asking comes naturally. As the saying goes, if you don’t ask ….

With this in mind, I’m pleased that I’ve reached out to several people this week, asking them to review my book. Even if I’m trudging along, I’m putting one foot in front of the other and I keep going.

Keep going …

Wordy Wednesday

I was on the bus recently (great place to pick up story ideas) and the two people behind me were chatting about a man they both knew. They were speculating as to whether he was ever going to find a partner.

“I wouldn’t ask, if I were you,” one said. “He takes umbrage at personal questions, that one.”

I smiled as they got off the bus, thinking there’s my next Wordy Wednesday.

To take umbrage means to be upset or offended by something someone says or does. I hadn’t thought about the meaning as it relates to providing shade, coming from the Old French umbrage. This in turn is from the Latin umbrâticus, which relates to shade – umbra shade. (Collins Dictionary)

Amazing what comes from a trip on the bus.

Sum up Sunday

How to sum up a week of extremely hot weather in 25 words or less? I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Here goes for mine:

Hot and bothered

Too hot to handle

Hot under the collar

Hot as hell

We’re in hot water

If the rain doesn’t come.

I never thought I’d be longing for rain ☔️

Flaunt it Friday

This week has been challenging. It’s been a struggle to get through the days and nights of heat. We cancelled a theatre trip we were looking forward to and the school visit I was doing today has been rescheduled.

On the upside, being confined to the house with all the curtains drawn has given me the chance to write every day. I’m lucky that the room where I do my writing is relatively cool.

How’s your week been?

It’s been hot, hot, hot

Bonus Wordy Wednesday

Two things coalesced this month in preparing my piece for the writing group I attend. Firstly, the prompt, which was to use pair idioms. Second, was a comment from a reader, on a previous Wordy Wednesday, using the word kenning, where two words are used to describe something or someone. I remembered how much I enjoyed learning about kenning poems at a writing group and decided to combine a kenning and pair idioms.

Pause for a Kenning

Aloof charmer, people calmer

Tail flicker, nose tickler.


Bright and early, out and about 

Here and there, back and forth.


Bed maker, sleep taker

Fence climber, two-timer.


Up and down, leaps and bounds 

Heads and tails meet and greet.


Tux wearer, stripe bearer

Sofa scratcher, mouse catcher.


Sooner or later, peace and quiet 

Fair and square, they’re always there.

Wordy Wednesday

Recently, a friend introduced me to the phrase, ‘having a benny‘. She was describing a situation where she’d avoided ‘having a benny’ because she’d had lots of friends round at the time. I’d heard the term before but not for some time and I immediately thought it’d be a good one for Wordy Wednesday.

To have a benny is to throw a tantrum or get angry about something and is used widely in The Midlands. There are many other phrases used to refer to the same thing. What do you say where you live?

What are the things that make you want to ‘have a benny’?