Purple scissors!

I‘m attending a book fair on Sunday (if you’re in Portsmouth, please come and say hello – it’s free entry and there’s a cafe selling cakes). 

That means I need some books to sell, and I therefore ordered some. Feeling pleased with myself for having remembered to do it in time for me to unpack and check them prior to the day I got a little bit carried away and decided to make an ‘unboxing’ video. I’m not sure when or why these became a trend, but from the ones I’d seen I had the impression it was an easy thing to do. I’m less sure about that now! Click here’s to see the result. I hope it makes you smile.

Wednesday word of the week – Monogene

A while ago I wanted a one word alternative to ‘only child’ and discovered monogene. The word isn’t in my dictionary and doesn’t seem to have one clear definition, but being the only begotten child is one alternative. It can also mean unique, special and one of a kind.

Much as I love my brother now, there were times whilst growing up when I’d have preferred to be a monogene. (I can’t give examples as he’s got as much on me as I have on him!)

Monogenesis is in my dictionary. It refers to the theory that all living things developed from a single cell. Apparently it was a bacteria like thingamy*. Monogeny is an alternative term as is monogenetics.

*sorry for the technical jargon!

Do you use Audible?

A couple of years ago I experimented with audio books. I got three made, but never did anything much to promote them. I’ve just discovered that the free promo codes for the UK and US sites, which I should have used at the time, are still active. If you’d like one, in exchange for leaving an honest review (Audible/Amazon/Goodreads) then let me know. Please state which book, and whether you want UK or US links.

Click on the images above to learn more about each title.

Wednesday word of the week – Alpinist

An alpinist is a climber of high mountains (generally, but not necessarily the Alps). I’m not an alpinist.

I don’t know if there’s a word for climbers of not very high mountains, only when it’s sunny, the path doesn’t look too treacherous and regular stops are permitted, but if there is, I’m one of them.

Boo!

Happy hallowe’en! If you fancy getting into the spirit of hallowe’en but there’s not a ghost of a chance or you reading a really scary book, or you just don’t know witch to choose, then you might enjoy my collections of slightly spooky stories.

Wednesday word of the week – Specious

Specious means either misleadingly attractive or superficially plausible, but actually wrong.

Custard made with salt instead of sugar would add speciosity to your trifle. An example of speciousness is the specious claim that as chocolate is dervived from plants, a family sized bar of Aero counts as one of your five a day. That’s only true if you choose the orange flavoured one (she adds speciously*)

*mint’s a plant, so green centred Aeros are healthy too.

Wednesday word of the week – Monticule

monticule is a small hill. Sounds rather friendly, doesn’t it? The sort of place you’d walk up to enjoy a picnic involving ginger beer and home made cake. A monticule can also be a mini mound caused by a volcano.

Here’s the view from a hill (quite a big one) I climbed up one summer. Recognise it?

Clue … instead of climbing up, you could just swan about down the bottom.

Wednesday word of the week –

Umbriferous means providing shade.
The depth of Lydford Gorge would make it a pleasantly shady place to walk in summer, even without the umbriferous canopy of vegetation.