Author Archives: alisongardiner1

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it … Continue reading →

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks and now someone has told me that it’s Christmas in only 10 days time. I really think I should have been given more warning of this so that I could get Panic … Continue reading →

In my head that’s a great concept. The serpent in question is an enormous beast; I imagine it dropping from the sky, slithery and shiny, landing in a neat coil like an Indian snake charmer’s lunch ticket. The answer to … Continue reading →

I’ve just been to the SCBWI annual conference in Winchester. For some reason this is pronounced Scooby not Scbwy (no, not the town, which is pronounced Winchester for all you newly confused Americans, although I do grant that a lot … Continue reading →

My brain currently seems to be following Archimedes’ principle, or at least the water in said mathematician’s barrel. Disappointing. It means that if I pour in a fact or three, other things seem to drop out of my head. I … Continue reading →

Suffering from slight dis-cogitation, my daughter, who has a degree in English, was struggling to find the word for rear-view mirror and came out with hindsight mirror. This is a completely perfect concept and I want one. Now. Or do … Continue reading →

Deciding that I needed to get fitter, I’ve taken up spinning, not so much as a duck to water but more of wool to the spindle; prickly (me) and painful meet. It’s only the agony which keeps me awake in … Continue reading →

  Hanging out with teenagers or young adults can be a surreal experience, moving seamlessly from reality to the dreamlike or bizarre, via their persistently empty stomachs. They claim that hypoglycaemia causes brain fuzzing; I know it leads to wallet … Continue reading →

My son’s washing has just arrived home after two months travelling in Thailand and Japan. Accompanying it was my son himself; thinner, beard thicker, hair shaggy, skin much browner, although that washed off after the first shower. His shoes were … Continue reading →

Oscars was the theme of the party. Even my tired brain managed to work out that it must be fancy dress, but then I got a bit stuck in working out who to go as. Perhaps a famous jazz pianist; … Continue reading →