Corrie weekly update - all the Christmas highlighters

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie, Aidan lost his highlighter pens.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Flaming Nora! It's Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all of my reader.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Corrie weekly update - singles night and a battered sausage

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie, a DNA test was not needed.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Enjoy 42 years of Coronation Street in one glorious book

Enjoy 42 years of Coronation Street and Deirdre Barlow in one glorious book this Christmas.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Corrie weekly update - return of the Renshaw twins

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie, the Renshaw twins returned. They even spoke! In unison!


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Making seaglass Christmas cards

This year I made some of my Christmas cards to give to family and friends. 

As a seaglass collector, I made the cards from seaglass, bits of driftwood and glitter. That's it, that's all it takes to create a little masterpiece and I couldn't be more chuffed.  

They're all different and unique - with different shapes and sizes of seaglass and driftwood. I used different coloured card too.

You can see more of my seaglass crafting here.

I still have two remaining seaglass framed hearts for sale on Etsy if you'd like to see them.



Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Corrie weekly update - a jaunty scarf and a jailbird

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie, there was a con.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Perfect Christmas present for Coronation Street fans

My book Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street is featured today on the WHSmith website. 

You might like to take a look and if so, it's here.

The book is also today featured in Inside Soap magazine's Christmas gift guide for soap fans.  I could not be more thrilled.

Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

The happy little word

On my #2minutebeachclean today I found the usual plastic bottles, plastic bottle tops, plastic containers, plastic boxes... you get the picture.  It's a lot of plastic and it makes the most wonderful noise as it rattles into the recycling bin once I get home.

But I also found this stone. Just an ordinary stone that someone had written the word Happy on. It'd been washed up on the shore. I brought it home and I'll keep it for a while, it's in the garden where I can see it from the kitchen window. What a lovely stone. What a lovely thought.

I might reciprocate and write my own word on a stone and leave it on the shore for someone to find. A word like Broccoli or Nemesis or Artificial.

Oh, and I also found that golf ball in amongst today's beach walk and clean.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Corrie weekly update - splashback, croft and Barbie

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie, there was a mucky splashback.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Words from Weatherfield

Deirdre: A  Life on Coronation Street has been hailed as a "must-have stocking filler for fans" and as a Christmas bestseller too.

It is now in the WHSmith top Christmas picks of biographies and autobiographies. Deirdre, pictured above from the WHSmith website, is in splendid company with Paul O'Grady and Bruce Forsyth

And the book has been featured on Love Reading UK where they say it's "A story told with love, laughter and drama".

Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street is available in all good book shops and online.

If you would like to listen to the BBC Radio Newcastle interview. I start speaking at 8mins and 20 seconds in on the Anna Foster show. It aired on Tuesday 27 October 2015 and is available for 30 days.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Remember you're not a Womble

I've been picking up plastic from the pristine sands of Sunderland.  I also adore alliteration but that's a separate story.

And in my two minute beach cleans - of which you can read more HERE and HERE - I'm afraid I'm turning into something of a Womble. 

I think, on the whole, I'd like to be Madame Cholet only because she had someone to do the washing up for her.



Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Five things I learned this week on the beach

Since my first two minute beach clean (or to give it its proper hashtag twitter thing #2minutebeachclean) I've been doing more, and more, and more.

The joy of the noise when the plastic, glass and tins hit the inside of the recycling bin makes it all worthwhile. And I might, just might, be making a difference.

The top five items that are turning up time and time again in my walks on the beach are as follows:

1. Lighters.
2. Babies dummies. This distresses me greatly. Are there babies swimming around in the sea crying?
3. Rubber glove. Singular. Always blue. Always just one of.
4. Plastic balls. Chewed.  Usually yellow.
5. Small, short lengths of rounded blue plastic, approx 4" long like a hard straw without a hole.


Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Five things I learned this week

It's been an eventful week in which I learned new things. I like learning new things. Here are the top five things I've learned this week.

 

1. To a public talk given by Stephen Whitelaw who is a Technology, Digital Marketing Consultant. The talk was organised by the Royal Television Society (North East and the Border) and it blew my mind. Really, it did. My brain is still broken.  If you get a chance to hear this man speak about the future of the web, go and listen to him. And then change all your internet passwords.  At the talk I learned a new word: Nomophobia.  What does it mean? Go on, Google it. On your phone.

2. For the last few months I've been regularly volunteering with Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens. I love this museum, it's been a part of my life since before I can remember. Volunteering there is one of the most satisfying and rewarding things I have ever done in my life.  This week I was given a project to undertake, the start of which is to revitalise one of their twitter accounts which had lain dormant for some time. I am now @WallaceTheLion1 which means I get to follow people online and roar at them. I learned that I like to roar.

3. To the flicks to see the new James Bond film, Spectre. En route to the cinema we called into Sweet Home Alabama to buy some ket to take in with us. The minimum amount of sweets they sell from a jar is 100g. I bought 100g of chocolate cremes. I learned that while 100g of chocolate cremes is delicious, it's 30g too much for me. 

4. Pears from the trees in our garden have fallen to the soil along with the leaves. I rake the leaves and keep them to make leaf mould. I throw the pears in the compost heap as there's no-one in our house who likes eating raw pears.  However, we do like cooked pears so I picked the remainder of the pears and cooked up a pear tart. I learned a new recipe.

5. I learned that joining a writers group was as scary as I feared it would be. The group was inspiring and friendly and I will return. I will. And I will write.




Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Weatherfield on the Wireless

BBC Radio Newcastle interviewed me this week to talk all things Coronation Street as the  ITV official Deirdre Barlow tribute book has now been published. 

The book has been hailed as a "must-have stocking filler for fans" and as a Christmas bestseller too.

It is available in all good book shops and online.

If you would like to listen to the BBC Radio Newcastle interview. I start speaking at 8mins and 20 seconds in on the Anna Foster show. It aired on Tuesday 27 October 2015.
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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

A drop in the ocean

Inspired by someone I follow on twitter but have never met, I went to the beach today.

Now then, I go to the beach often as I live just four streets away from the sea-front and walking on the beach is one of my most favourite things to do, in the world, ever.

But today, inspired by Beach Buoy I took a carrier bag with me for my walk on the beach.  Beach Buoy also lives by the sea, a little further down the coast from where I live. He tweets pictures of his walks showing things he's found. And he's found some amazing things - a message in a bottle, for instance, old pottery, broken shards of history.   He blogs his finds here.

He also carries out a 15 minute beach clean and that was my inspiration today.  On my beach walk I took a bag and without deliberately looking for plastic on the sand, if I came across any I picked it up and popped it in my bag. Our local beaches are more or less clean, so when I started my walk (which lasted an hour, 30 mins to the rocks and 30 mins back) I didn't pick up anything as there was nothing to find.  But on the walk back, my steps took me along the line where the seaweed tangled with all kinds of plastic.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get near the plastic on this bit of the beach as the seaweed was covered with and jumping with flies. I mean, I'm all for helping save the planet and all that, but you know, flies. Millions of them. Eww.

So I walked back on the edge of the seaweed and the flies, where the plastic had been thrown against the sea wall. I picked up what I could as I wandered back home and I ended with a plastic carrier bag full of other people's crap.  Crap that won't disappear. Crap that floats around the oceans of the world and creates plastic islands, killing fish and sea life.

I know taking just one bag of plastic from the beach isn't going to change much, but it's a drop in the ocean, a start.

Beach Buoy once said there was no better sound than the noise of the plastic he'd picked up off the beach as it rattled its way into his recycling bin.  I know the joy of that noise now. 

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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Suffragette: My film review

To the flicks this afternoon to see Suffragette.  I had put off going to see this film because I thought a) it would be worthy, b) it would be dull and c) it contains Helena Bonham-Carter of whom I'm not fond as she tends to play posh dotty women (of whom I'm not fond).  But when the film turned up in The Guardian Guide this weekend as the No. 1 film to see, I had a rethink and took myself to the pictures today.

The film is stunning.  Right from the very first moment to the last, it's superb.  The acting, the costumes, the locations, everything is, well I can't keep saying stunning and superb but that's exactly what it was.  Even Helena Bonham-Carter played her part of a posh (but not dotty this time) woman to perfection and Meryl Streep made a too-brief appearance as Emmeline Pankhurst.

Anne-Marie Duff and Carey Mulligan are the stars of the film, their performances outstanding.

We know the history, of course, that Emily Davison died in the fight for the vote for women by throwing herself in front of the King's horse at the Derby in 1913.  This event takes us to the film's end and to Emily's funeral which is where the film turns from cinema to historic news reel, none of its power lost more than a century on.

When the credits rolled, I couldn't move. I was in tears and I had to wait until they subsided before I left the cinema. No one else moved either. The cinema was half full, and no one moved. We all sat together, shocked, stunned, in tears, watching the credits roll and pulling ourselves together before we re-entered the world.

I came out of the cinema upset but fired up. I wanted to throw stones, break things, fight for the cause. It's a film that has to be seen and I urge you to watch it.
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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Corrie weekly update - the black and gold jazzy dress

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie, there were donkeys.
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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Deirdre Barlow tribute book

Today, Thursday October 22 2015 is publication day of my book Deirdre: A  Life on Coronation Street.  I feel incredibly honoured, privilieged and proud to have written this affectionate tribute to one of the best soap characters of all time.

The book is available in all good bookshops and online too.


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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Corrie weekly update - Tinky Winky and a violin

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie, there was a giant Tinky Winky.
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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

A is for Apples

 

Having fruit trees in the garden is quite wonderful. We get beautiful blossom in the spring from three apple trees and two pear trees.  That's followed by wonderful foliage in the summer and then fruit in the autumn. The only problem is, neither himself nor I like pears and we're not that fond of apples either. 

We tend to give a lot of the fruit away to those who want it and this year we've got pear wine on the go.  While I'm not keen on eating apples raw, I do like apples cooked and in cakes. So when I saw this recipe in The Guardian for apple curd tart I thought I'd give it a go.

 

Here's the final thing, fresh from the oven.  And here, below, is how it should look (on the left) and how mine looks (on the right).  The difference in colour can be explained by the fact that I ran out of sugar so I used half white sugar and half demerara sugar. This never happens in Great British Bake Off, does it?  My tart also appears to look less 'set' than the one in the recipe but I can assure you that it tastes absolutely wonderful.

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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Corrie weekly update - Mr & Mrs Metcalfe and son

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie,  there was a Weatherfield wedding.
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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Corrie weekly update - if you build it, he will come

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here.

This week on Corrie,  Field of Dreams met Weatherfield.
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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora

Books I read on my jollies 2015

Back from a lovely holiday overseas and here's a quick run down of the books I read while I was away.

Lynn Barber, A curious career.  I've always enjoyed journalist Lynn Barber's interviews and when I saw an unused and unread version of this book for sale in a charity shop for a song I snapped it up. I read it on the plane journey to our holiday destination. Devoured every word.  10/10.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.  This book was recommended to me by someone who described it to me in such a way that I knew it would be right up my street. I was right. I loved the story and couldn't put it down. It cracked along at a great pace.  I do hope it's made into a film. 10/10.

Please, Mister Postman by Alan Johnson. This is the 2nd instalment of Alan Johnson's autobiography, the first version I read earlier this year.  A delight. 8/10.

Despite a promising write-up on the back of the book and some decent prose inside, I gave up on this book after a few pages. It felt cliched and I wish I'd never bought it. It's gone to a charity shop already. 0/10.

I love Douglas Kennedy books - but I hate the covers. The covers of all of his books have women on the front of them that make his work look like the worst kind of chick-lit in a Mills and Boon style. His stories are immense, powerful, they race along at a great pace and you can't wait to turn the page.  Why his publisher keeps insisting on such terrible book covers, that have absolutely nothing to do with the content and the story, I'll just never understand.  Another great story from a master story-teller. 9/10.
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I'm on twitter @flaming_nora