On being a mum

I love being a mother. I love my children. All five of them enrich my life and help make it all the more interesting.

This morning I was woken by my Triffitt children with prezzies (the Battbaby was in bed with us having a cuddle and Erin was at her grandparents). They each gave me something personal and sweet, plus I had two presents that they had bought as a group. Prezzie time over, we moved on to the soccer where I spent time yelling myself hoarse.

Lunch was at Chatters, one of my favourite restaurants before we took the kids home to their father's.

A lovely day. The children were kind, considerate, sweet and well mannered. They were fabulous. Which was why I burst into tears at lunch and have barely stopped since.

This is my second mother's day. It has also been the worst. I couldn't bare the thought that it would end and they would be returned to Jon. It was just so unfair. I know I'm a great parent. I love my children and they know it. I do everything with their best interests at heart. I've never abused them or made them feel less than secure. So why do they prefer him to me? I just don't get it at all.

Okay, change the subject

We just arrived home from our day out to find an email from the wonderful Dave Luckett (husband of Sally Beasley, author extraordinaire and the other half of the duo that gave me away at the wedding) telling me to check out the Tangent site.

A review. A positive review. An absolutely brilliant and glowing review about my story "The Memory of Breathing".

Thank you to Dave for loving the story enough to recommend it to his wife, thank you to Sally for being such a brilliant editor and for placing it in ASIM 17 and of course, a big thank you to my beloved husband for always believing in me and for encouraging me every step of the way.

Last night

Last night was one of the best experiences of my life. We had Martin Livings (one of my favourite authors) and his partner Dr Izzy and Shane Jaraiya Cummings (another author-pal of ours) and his partner Angela Challis (editor of Shadowed Realms) over for dinner. The evening was fabulous. The food was good, the wine bottled and the company both lively and intelligent. Apologies to poor Dr Iz for the copious shop talk, but it was one of the rare occasions when Lee and I found ourselves mixing with other writers. We had a brilliant time.

One of the highlights for me was meeting Angela properly. There are times in your life when you meet someone and you just click from the get-go. Angela and I connected on about a dozen different levels and never shut up all night.

Everyone left about 12:30 and we were fast asleep about 5 minutes later. Naturally it was one of the few nights where Connor slept through until 4:30, and we were awake for most of it.

Soccer

3-2. In our favour. That's all I'm saying.

Okay, we're out of here. Big Brother starts again tonight, so we're off to begin our evening.

Take care and enjoy your week.