Cup of Tea and a Bex

Creative inspiration for busy mamas

Five favourite ways to procrastinate

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Five favourite ways to procrastinate. Hint: it may involve endless of cups of tea.

If there was a prize for procrastinating I would surely win it. I have thought a lot about this blog over the last few months, but have I actually updated it? Of course not. That would involve the uncomfortable task of having to order my thoughts, decide what to write about and write it. That’s before I’ve even started battling with WordPress or finding a photo to go with the post. In my defence, I have been doing actual work work. But I have doubtless frittered away time when I could have been writing posts or, you know, a novel.

Here’s what I’ve mainly been doing instead: [Read more…]

Calm & Collected (three): Send a Handwritten Letter

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When was the last time you sent a letter? Not typed a text or dashed off an email but put a real pen to real paper? And Christmas cards don’t count…

Can you remember? I’m not sure either, but it was probably a birthday card, it certainly wasn’t a proper letter to a friend to just say hello. So for this week’s Calm & Collected project, I’m going to send a letter – just because. Would you like to join me?

The Beauty of Snail Mail

I have fond memories of life before text and e-mail, with boxes of teenage correspondence from my school and university days to prove it.

When I started studying at Cardiff University twenty years ago, I was assigned my first email address. But it was hardly an easy way to keep in touch: I only knew about three other people who used email and you had to go to the library to send an email.

No-one had a mobile phone and there was one solitary pay phone at the bottom of the stairs for the whole halls of residence. So I would keep in touch with friends via lots of cute postcards. The cards they sent back to me decorated the walls of my bedroom and the sight of their familiar handwriting always eased my homesickness and made me smile, in a way an email never could.

I’ve said before, that my Gran was a wonderful letter writer and could make the most mundane of weeks sound entertaining, with little snippets of news and musings written out with a blue Biro in

Calm & Collected (one): Find a Word of the Year

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Calm & Collected Project: Choose a word of the year to help set intentions for the new year. Cup of Tea and a Bex.

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.

TS Eliot – Little Gidding

I was scrolling through Instagram this morning and came across this quote (thanks for the inspiration  Melisa @coffeepaperyarn) and it just summed up all I’d been thinking about this week’s Calm & Collected challenge: pick a word of the year. [Read more…]