{"id":1606,"date":"2024-12-02T15:51:22","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T15:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/?p=1606"},"modified":"2024-12-02T15:51:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-02T15:51:22","slug":"its-that-time-of-year-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/2024\/12\/its-that-time-of-year-again\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s That Time of Year Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It seems like Christmas 2023 was only two months ago yet here we are with just over three weeks to go until Christmas 2024. I remember my parents saying that time speeds up as you get older and I\u2019m finding that to be the case. It\u2019s scary!! But I do love this time of year. October, November and December are my favourite months. Apart from Halloween. I don\u2019t like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday I put up my tree. I must say I\u2019m a bit disappointed in it. It\u2019s a Quasimodo Christmas tree: misshapen!! It was in a net when I bought it so I didn\u2019t notice until I cut the net away. There are four bare branches at the top with about ten needles between them and then there is a huge gap on one side with no branches but an overflowing with branches area on the other side. I\u2019ve turned it around so the misshapen bit is at the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I can\u2019t complain I suppose as it only cost me \u00a312.50 in Tesco, reduced from \u00a325 on Club Card. I\u2019d have been very upset if I\u2019d paid the full amount. Once it was up I watched Nativity on TV. What a lovely little film. I can\u2019t believe I\u2019d never seen it before. And then I started writing my Christmas cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love sending and receiving Christmas cards, although this year I am trying to hand deliver as many as I can. I can\u2019t believe a second class stamp costs 86 pence!!!! It made me sad, though. Every year there\u2019s someone else I won\u2019t be getting a card from because they\u2019ve passed away. I know it\u2019s to be expected at my age, <\/em>but it\u2019s sad. Very sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My WIP (work in progress) is coming along. At snail\u2019s pace, I must admit but as long as I keep moving in the right direction I suppose that\u2019s good. I\u2019ll have a day when I write like mad but then I\u2019ll go for perhaps a fortnight without looking at it again. Its working title is A Happy Home and it opens at Christmas time but it can\u2019t really be considered a Christmas book. Unlike Single All The Way and You Never See Rainbows At Christmas, which are both Christmas books. YNSRAC is free to download to your Kindle 9th-12th December. (And not 1st-5th December as I posted on social media and then had to hastily delete.) Senior moment!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last week or so I\u2019ve been giving my talk How To Avoid An Abusive Relationship to various sixth form groups as part of their empowerment week. I do hope it will make a difference to someone. I am considering writing about an abusive relationship in my next book (the one after WIP). No prizes for guessing it won\u2019t be a rom com! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy December!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems like Christmas 2023 was only two months ago yet here we are with just over three weeks to go until Christmas 2024. I remember my parents saying that time speeds up as you get older and I\u2019m finding … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1609,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606\/revisions\/1609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}