Many writers have shared their thoughts with the public:

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." - Beatrix Potter

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." - Anaïs Nin

"Sharing your writing, being enlarged by others' writing, is what makes you feel famous." - Gretchen Bernabei

"Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth." - Edna Ferber

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Ben Franklin

"One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones to form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment." - Hart Crane

"There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham

Astrology Conversion

Today you will experience the marvellous wonders of the natural world.

I don’t believe in astrology but I always take a tongue-in-cheek peek at my horoscope. The stars definitely got it wrong today because I don’t plan on leaving home.

Putting aside the morning daily I meander into the kitchen for my heart-starter, pouring milk into my mug…I’m a milk first kind a gal… and dropping in a sweetener, before turning to switch on the kettle to make an instant coffee.

Black ants march in a trail across the white tiles behind the kitchen sink. I wash them away…must be due for rain.

Pantry moths, newly hatched overnight, flutter out when I open the pantry door to get the coffee jar.

Oh God. How do I get rid of them? Google will know. Wash the pantry with sugar soap then spray. But Google says they can lay their eggs in tiny cracks and the eggs can live up to 300 days. A year’s worth of spraying to look forward to and smashing any that dare to hatch.

Knew I should have got rid of those two open bags of flour with long expired use-by dates, but they’d lurked in the dark recess of the pantry just biding their time.

I badly need that coffee before bagging the pantry’s chemically imbued deceased contents, then sugar-soaping, but a blowfly’s swimming a butterfly medley in the milk.

A big hairy-legged spider catches my eye in the corner above the TV as I switch on the morning news while waiting for the kettle to boil. I always try to put spiders back outdoors if I can, courtesy of the garden broom from the woodshed. I seriously need to think about having a cobweb blitz.

Coiled up in the few logs left over from the winter is a brown snake; should’ve expected it. A wary stamp of my feet and it dozily slithers away; if it had shoulders they would have shrugged at me. I grab the broom.

The spider and I fight a tense battle. I’m the victor, managing to capture it in the bristles and shake it off back to its rightful place…the garden, but I’d knocked my family photo off the wall; glass shattered.

Perhaps I should go back to bed? Knowing my luck today it would be full of bed-bugs. Of course it wouldn’t. My house-keeping and cleanliness could never be that bad. Could it?

Coffee finally brewed, pantry cleaned, glass cleared away, bed made, no bugs in sight, and a fine, rain free afternoon forecast.

Ants don’t know everything.

I decide to stretch out on my white plastic banana lounge beneath a hot sun; hat and 50 plus sunscreen applied, Ann Cleeves latest book ready to go.

A maggot-ridden crow lies feet up under the lounge delivering a sweet, fetid smell to my nostrils. With a sigh I fetch a plastic bag and disposable gloves then settle back with Ann.

Tiny biting insects have dined as I dozed under the hot sun. When I wake in the late afternoon my legs starts to itch, I scratch. Small red lumps begin appear on my sun-baked skin.

Lasagne and a light salad will make for a delightful meal while watching one of my favourite crime series. A caterpillar peeps out from over the top of a lettuce leaf. Soup and a bread roll accompanied by, probably, a full bottle of Chardonnay.

Thankful that the day’s drawing to a close, I crawl into bed. On the fringe of sleep I hear a trifling hum that turns into an irritating whine. A determined mosquito is intent on being the last to ensure that I experience the marvellous wonders of the natural world.

Astrology has a new convert.