Jaye Marie's Blog

Finally… #progress report

Finally…

After such a busy and stressful year, I am only now getting to grips with playing catch up in my office. I have been trying, obviously, but I don’t think my heart was in it. It was just something that needed doing.

Maybe it took longer for me to realise that I really did have a future, one that didn’t have me sitting in a wheelchair, unable to move. That fear hasn’t completely gone away; it lingers like a bad smell.

Waiting for the next treatment to stop the pain in my back is proving to be never ending. Hospital waiting lists seem to be impossibly long.

And then there are my poor knees.

Thanks to several tumbles, most days they are more painful than my back!

So, positive thinking is not easy, and it is hard to maintain when you do find some. My main problem was having to learn how to do everything again. For some reason not all of the information had filtered through!

Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, I am slowly clearing the backlog on my desk. That long list of writing jobs is getting shorter. I have far more enthusiasm than I expected, and I love it.

Coming soon… two upgraded and polished manuscripts, a new novella, almost ready to publish, a brand-new story idea, and the long suffering current WIP is coming back to life. My head bursts with ideas and planning.

I feel confident and able for the first time this year, and this is the best thing of all…

Hooray!

No Sex Please, I’m Menopausal! #Review #Humour @StevieTurner6

After going through the menopause Lyn finds that she no longer wants sex. This is unfortunate, as her husband Neil still does. When he discards her after 35 years of marriage like an old worn out shoe, Lyn moves to Cornwall to start a new life. However, new friends are hard to find, and she feels lonely. On the spur of the moment she decides to join an online dating site, ‘MatchULike’, just for companionship. Amongst the peculiar people she meets is Peter; shy, and conscious that his ‘gentleman’s’ operation has rendered him an unattractive prospect in the marriage stakes. Lyn makes a friend of Peter, but when Neil gets to hear about the friendship he realises too late that there is more to a relationship than just sex, and he suddenly starts to appear back on the scene and wants to turn her life upside down all over again!

Five star review from ‘Maggie’ on 13/9/2014
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1MJRA84SG61UM
This an extremely witty and in places a funny book and if I may say so clever! I was given a copy of this book, in return for an honest review – how lucky was I?
The title intrigued me, but how true. many menopausal women feel like this and how many men don’t understand! I think this has been a topic with many women over a cuppa for many generations.
The book delves into many emotions and has twists and turns, that are cleverly dealt with, so it is easily understood.
I won’t do into more details here, as honestly I don’t want to spoil the book for you the reader.
Should you get a copy YES!!!!! (Ladies you are going to love this) – I guess you can tell by my comments that I recommend it.

About the author

Stevie Turner

Stevie Turner is a British author of romantic suspense, paranormal stories, and women’s fiction family dramas which are sometimes humorous. She is a cancer survivor, and still lives in the same picturesque Suffolk village that she and husband Sam moved to in 1991 with their two boys. Those two boys have now grown, and she and Sam have 5 lovely grandchildren.

One of her short stories, ‘Lifting the Black Dog’, was published in ‘1000 Words or Less Flash Fiction Collection’ (2016). Her screenplay ‘For the Sake of a Child’ won a silver award in the Spring 2017 Depth of Field International Film Festival, and her novel ‘A House Without Windows’ gained interest in 2017 from De Coder Media, an independent film production company based in New York. ‘Finding David’ reached the quarter-finals of the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition. ‘Scam!’ won first prize in the 2021 Electric Eclectic writing competition, and ‘His Ladyship,’ reached the finals and Longlist of the 2021 Page Turner Writing Award. ‘Falling’ reached the finals of the 2022 Page Turner Writing Award, and Stevie’s latest manuscript ‘Tina’s Diary: 1997’ reached the finals of the 2023 Page Turner Writing Award. You can find Stevie’s books and reviews on her website http://www.stevieturner.uk

To quote reader Roberta Baden-Powell, ‘I’m looking forward to reading your new book, and find your books the best so far. The style you write in has given me a new perspective and a renewed inspiration in reading once again.’

Our Review

There is a lot of humour in Stevie’s story. What could have been depressing, is lighthearted and relevant.

Lyn’s journey was a familiar one, and all of my own memories came flooding back. I too, had a rough time with the menopause. Would I have visited a dating agency though? Meeting another possible problem would of been out of the question. Everyone needs a friend, but not one with benefits.

However, I did fall head over heels for Jamie and Peter. Such lovely characters, secrets notwithstanding and so instrumental on guiding Lyn to the right place.

Stevie Turner’s stories are always so real, so believable. I truly loved reading No Sex Please and can recommend it to women of all ages…

The Joy of Exercising…

When I was growing up, exercise was something everyone else did.

As I grew older, I did appreciate the need to stretch my muscles, and I even tried it a few times. It was so boring, I didn’t keep it up.

Even when I gained a few pounds, I couldn’t summon much enthusiasm. I had all the good intentions in the world, just not the will to make them work.

I have always been disgustingly fit and strong. Even when life started to assail me on a regular basis, my strength prevailed.

All of this came grinding to a halt earlier this year, when my strength began to ebb away. Every day I grew weaker, until my body stopped working. Paralysed from the waist down due to an inflamed nerve in my spine, I ended up trapped in my tiny office, a prisoner for the foreseeable future.

They didn’t know how to help me. Too old for surgery, but regular exercise might get me moving again. Might?

For months, exercise became my friend, and painfully slowly, I began to get stronger. I’m not quite there yet, but I can stagger around a bit now.

Back to the point of this post.

Most things in life involve exercise to make them work properly, and that includes writing. I have come to realise that everything I love to do and feel confident about has involved regular exercise. Every time I write a post or a new chapter for a book, this is an exercise. It must be, because I am getting better with these too.

Every book I have ever written has needed an incredible amount of exercise.

Our brains thrive on being stretched, and everything we want to do involves regular activity to make perfect…

In a Vase on Monday… mostly

Today, while enjoying so many lovely things here on my WordPress, I was overjoyed with the beautiful flower displays from Eliza and Cathy, two of the posts taking part in IAVO today.

I find it hard to get my bearings on a Monday, but the fading memories of some of my own wonderful flowers kept floating around in my head.

So, this is my tribute to those brilliant gardeners who keep us inspired all year…

A fabulous peony, one of my favourites…

and the Myrtle, this was such a lovely surprise…

and this hardy cyclamen was the biggest surprise of the year. I didn’t plant this, but it was so welcome. a magical moment among the weeds in my garden…

Here’s to many lovely gardening days in 2026…

Good News!

NaNoWriMo Is Out. Welcome Novel November! | Nicholas C. Rossis

Silent Sunday…

The last of the summer…

with love from both of us…

I Wish… #Poetry

The river knows its way home
The bee knows how to make honey
As I walk towards the river, a bee stung my arm
Instantly, I wanted to give the bee his sting back
I wanted to take back every angry word I had spoken
and shoot them into space
Most of all, I want to return the bee sting
Unfortunately, there’s no winding life back
I keep the bees sting in a box
to remind me that life is fragile
For some it can be too short
like the bee that stung me…

©AnitaDawes2025


a sad poem from my sister. Why do bees have to die if they sting you?

A present from the birds…

Someone asked me the other day how many bonsai did I have in my collection, and if I had a favourite. A question I found hard to answer. 

I wondered why I found it hard, I mean, counting them was easy, I had twenty trees in my collection. Whether one of them was my favourite  was harder to answer.

They are not just a hobby, they are part of my family, and like any other family, I love them all.

I have some very expensive older trees, presents from my family, and several younger ones. I also have what I affectionately call my nursery. This is where I am cultivating ordinary garden shrubs, patiently pruning and trimming them, year after year, hoping for a passable bonsai.

There are many rules and regulations for bonsai, their shape, style  and condition, and of course, their age.

I also have a few trees that were gifted to me by the birds. They tend to drop the seeds they carry in their beaks as they fly over my garden. I always know it’s them when I find a new plant growing where there wasn’t one before. If I like the look of it (some are weeds) I dig them up, introduce them to a bonsai pot and they join my collection. Sometimes it takes years for me to recognize what they are, and that is part of the fun.

Watching them grow and change is exciting, but caring for them all can be a nightmare. Like children their needs are constant, no days off…

wishing everyone a happy and peaceful weekend…

FreeFall… #Poetry

FreeFall

I like the sound of the singing butterfly, with airy dreams falling free
Rain so delicate you cannot see it, or feel its touch
Where rivers flow with swollen dreams,
waiting to be caught in a fisherman’s net
The golden catch he carries home to feed his family
When the first taste of a dream touches their lips,
together they can make their dreams come true,
with homemade wine.
Remembering to leave some for the fairy king and queen
Give yourself the chance to hear the song of the butterfly
Take a leap to catch your dream…

©AnitaDawes2025

A brand new poem from Anita! Not her usual style, but I love it! I don’t remember my dreams, so I must make do with daydreams…

Wednesday Words…

This quote almost shouted at me this morning!

A beautiful reminder that the past has gone and that I should be concentrating on the future… (now that it looks as though I might actually have one!)

Speaking of the future, this is next years dream… I have just pruned our wisteria, and possibly done it right for a change, so maybe we will have flowers!