Categories
Adulthood Recommendations Writing

A Sunday Morning Podcast.

I love a Sunday morning. The relaxed vibe, not having to do anything or answer to anybody, staying in bed, a quiet world outside. The nature of my work often has me naturally awake at around 6am but knowing that I can then go back to sleep with no alarm set on a Sunday makes me smile and shut my eyes. Usually this is a time when I write and read, though the past few months have been rather manic to say the least so I’ve not experienced many Sunday mornings as easy as Lionel Richie sings about.

This week I am certainly back in the game. It is ten past eight in the morning. I am onto my second cup of tea in bed and I have a pastry that I am about ready to devour. It is my treat each Saturday when the pastries arrive from the baker, a nice sweet start to my Sunday – sod the diet! I was speaking to a man yesterday who was questioning why us women frequently try to “be good”. ‘Who are you doing it for?’ he asks his wife, ‘because I don’t care?’ He had a point, so I considered buying two pastries but stuck to one.

As much as I love Sunday mornings I also love a good podcast. Happy Place by Fearn Cotton is my go to but I am always open to new ones. Recently I watched an Imagine Documentary: Marian Keyes: My (Not so) Perfect Life. I LOVE Marian Keyes as an author and a person. I found the entire hour long programme fascinating and it taught me so much about Marian that I didn’t know. When I was telling a friend about it she said that Marian has a podcast out so I searched for that this morning.

Now You’re Asking With Marian Keyes and Tara Flynn

It’s brilliant! Each episode is around 30 minutes long and they are in Dear Deirdre style. Listeners write in with questions/ problems, and Marian and Tara try to solve them in their funny, light hearted but also very heartfelt and with a point manner. They cover everything from relationships to in-laws to a resting bitch face committee and how yawning is A-OK (as long as it isn’t to passive aggressively tell someone that they are boring). I’ve already listened to two episodes and I’m about to get cracking with a third.

Anyone who follows me will know how sporadic my writing is of late and I can’t tell you when my next podcast recommendation will pop up here but I will be sure to keep you posted.

H x

For links to all of my writing related stuff, my link tree is below. You can also find published work in my portfolio. My debut novel, Dear Brannagh, is available on Amazon along with the sequel Don’t Tell Jack. If you enjoy what you’re seeing here and are interested in following me on my writing journey, then please subscribe to my newsletter by dropping your name and email. There will be plenty of giveaways, news hot off the press and an honest insight into life as an author. Thank you x

linktr.ee/HJMWriting

Categories
Adulthood Non-fiction Observations Writing

A healthy amount of lone time…

(NB. I wrote this two weeks ago)

Today, so far, has been bloody lovely. My friends have gone away for the weekend and said I was welcome to their house. Having worked another exhausting week surrounded by people (lovely, but people) I took them up on this offer without a thought.

Sometimes you just need to clock off from life.

It is 1pm and I have spent every minute of this day alone. Apart from a couple of texts, fewer than my usual, I have been alone in every aspect of the word. When I lay there in bed this morning I thought how happy I felt to be able to enjoy this amount of lone time. Realising not everyone is this lucky due to either never getting a window of alone time to enjoy or fighting with their inner demons for each second of it, I count my blessings and realise how lucky I am.

It’s been the laziest morning I’ve had in a long while, but also one of the best.

I woke at 8am and gave myself a further thirty minutes sleeping time because it’s Sunday and I felt reckless. I then read The Wind In The Willows chapter 1 because an article in Writing Magazine suggested we all do this during lock down. A chapter a day, he said, will boost our spirits. It certainly lifted me up.

With my second cup of tea, having devoured a lemon and saltana danish (naughty), I continued reading another book I have on the go and one which I am LOVING. The Olive Tree by Lucinda Riley – check it out.

I rose. Showered. Popped to work to check the ice cream machine which had been put together by me yesterday hadn’t completely exploded everywhere. A mess I do not wish to have to deal with at 6am tomorrow morning. Warmed up some pasta and spotted that my bottle of white had just about enough left in it for a glass.

Don’t worry, it’s past 12pm.

I poured myself a glass and now I sit writing, listening to the wind, totally at peace and absoloutly loving this day!

A healthy amount of lone time and it felt so good.

(NB. I finished reading The Olive Tree yesterday and I would recommend. I also continue to read a chapter of The Wind In The Willows for a pick me up during these mad times.)

All blog posts can be found at https://www.harrietmills.co.uk/ and to read my published work visit my portfolio.