Versatile Blogger Award

I was very pleased  to learn that I’ve been nominated for this award by fellow-blogger and Goodreads friend Lance Greenfield whose blog I follow.

Lance is the author of “Eleven Miles” a book which I reviewed recently and which I can thoroughly recommend.

Writing a weekly blog post is an excellent writing discipline, and a wonderful creative outlet, as I write about anything which has inspired or intrigued me during the week. I began the blog shortly after my debut novel Mystical Circles was published, with the idea of appealing to those who might enjoy reading my fiction. I especially like writing on spiritual subjects, as well as history, the arts, films, books, people and places of inspiration. I hope that my blog readers will be keen to buy my next novel (provisional title: A Passionate Spirit) when it comes out (hopefully this year). Meanwhile I love writing my blog for its own sake, and have also found several other engaging and talented blog writers on the internet.

I hope you enjoy exploring my blog and that you will give me plenty of feedback.

Now I’d like to nominate the following blogs that I’ve been following with interest for some time.

http://ramonacrisstea.com/ – a lovely blog by a young Romanian fashion designer who posts beautiful photos of herself in her own designs

https://megharperbooks.wordpress.com/ – the blog of my friend and fellow author Meg Harper

https://zenandtheartoftightropewalking.wordpress.com/ –  author Vivienne Tufnell’s imaginative, sensitive and intelligent blog

http://spookymrsgreen.com/ – posts from another fellow author, Catherine Green, who writes paranormal fiction and whose posts about her life as a young mother are touching and engaging.

https://delemares.wordpress.com/ Meditation, Mental Health and Mindful Crochet – a very thought-provoking and discerning blog from Sandra Delemare, retired mental health nurse.

http://www.sheepdressedlikewolves.com/ – written by Andy Mort who is consistently one of the wisest and most thoughtful voices on the internet

 

Finally, to fulfill the conditions of my award, and these are the conditions that all recipients must follow, so please do so if you have been nominated by me, I must state the rules of the award and list seven things about myself that you may not know.

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The Seven things about myself that you may not know

1. I did a parachute jump over Bickmarsh Airfield near Stratford-upon-Avon in 1976, with the BBC Parachute Club.

2. I flew over the Outback of Australia in a hot air balloon in 1990.
3. I was in Rhodes on holiday with my sister and her friend when war broke out over Cyprus, between Greece and Turkey. We were unable to leave the island for a while, and discovered that all the male staff of the pension we were staying in had gone off to join the war, so we had to make our own meals.

4. I wrote a play about my time there, and all the characters I met, called Fortnight of the Cockroach which I sent to the BBC. It was turned down. Since then I’ve lost the original ms. I’m hoping it’s somewhere around the house and that I might uncover it again one day!

5. I lived and worked in Brisbane, Australia, for four and a half years.
6. During my childhood and early teenage years I sang with a girls choir in Orpington, Kent. We were ‘the chorus of younger angels’ in a performance of Mahler’s 8th Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. I’ve also sung under the baton of Andre Previn and Simon Rattle.

7. My most outstanding holiday experience was in a town in the Himalayas called Badrinath, (close to India’s border with Tibet) where I saw Neel Kanth, ‘mountain of light’.

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The Award Rules

• Thank the person who gave you this award.
•  Include a link to their blog.
•  Next, select  several blogs/bloggers that you follow.
•  Nominate those bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.
•  Finally, tell 7 things about yourself.

Full details of the award can be found on the VBA website through this link.