Five stars for Robin Hood

22 Apr

Robin Hood cover Readers Favourite badgeI just got another lovely review for Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood Is Wrong, this time from Reader’s Favorite. As it was a five-star review, I now have the right to put their lovely badge on my book, if I like (as in the picture above) or buy some sheets of sticky badges for oodles of money. I think I’ll make do with the digital kind.

The woman who did the review gave me too much credit for original research, when WEYKARHIW was really just a synthesis of existing research. But a five-star review is a five-star review and I’ll take it, thank you very much.

If you want to read it, it is here: Reader’s Favorite review. Otherwise, you can just coo in admiration over the rather snazzy metallic-effect badge superimposed above.

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Life in Lockdown

3 Apr

Here in the UK we are approaching the second week of ‘lockdown’. It’s not a real lockdown because you can still go out for exercise (once a day), shopping (ideally once a day) and many people are still going to work. In Azerbaijan, you now need permission from the government to even step out your door, I’m told.

But still, it’s fairly restrictive, and it has altered my life as I expect it has yours. I’m actually on the third week of lockdown because I’m in one of these ‘vulnerable groups’ and so was able to go the supermarket during one of their restricted hours and wrestle pensioners for toilet paper. Heroism is not dead.

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Robin Hood Review

27 Mar

Just a quickie to say that there’s a new review of Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood is Wrong from Reader Views. The nice girl who reviewed it, Rachel Dehning,  describes the book as being “akin to a humorous research project” which seems entirely fair. Sometimes it seems my whole life is akin to a humorous research project…

Anyway, I’ll let you read it in its entirety if you like:

WEYKARHIW review on Reader Views

And hopefully in the not-too-distant future I’ll be posting about my experience of self-isolation. Just like every other blogger in the world.

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Happy (belated) International Women’s Day!

9 Mar

If I had been more organised, I would have written this post in good time and set it up to come out on International Women’s Day. But I didn’t, so the next best time is now.

I wrote a wee blog post for Premier about five Christian women who have been unjustly forgotten. I got to choose all but one of them, so naturally I included one of my personal heroes, Olympia Fulvia Morata. (I’ll take any excuse to go on about her.)

If you would like to find out about this amazing woman, and also about Perpetua (whose feast day is the day before International Women’s Day, coincidentally), Josephine Butler, Susan B. Anthony and Catherine Booth, please go ahead and click the link.

Five incredible Christian women you should really know

If you already know about all of them, well done you. And get in touch – we should probably be friends!

Fun Facts about Joan of Arc

2 Mar

When I was researching my article on Joan (who wasn’t really called ‘of Arc’, by the way) for my article in the latest edition of Premier Christianity Magazine, I came across a number of facts that I couldn’t squeeze into the article, but which deserve to be shared anyway. I’ve called this “Fun facts about Joan of Arc” but really it should be called “Fun facts which are at least tangentially linked to Joan (not of Arc)”. But that’s not so snappy. Continue reading →

Blake’s 7°C

11 Feb

You may remember that I decided to make a temperature blanket this year. It’s going pretty well, so far, although the temperature has been stubbornly sticking between 6 and 10 degrees centigrade most days, meaning that my blanket is largely midnight blue. It’s a good job I like midnight blue.

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Bible Hit Parade

27 Jan

I’m a bit scattered at the moment (rather than scatterbrained, as I always am) because I’m trying to learn Dutch for my research trip to Leiden; carry on writing the novel that the research trip is for; organise the next stage of my asylum seekers craft project; pitch my alchemy book to a publisher who showed a vague interest; interview people for an article I’m writing; and do my usual interpreting and translation on top. But I don’t see why I should neglect the poor blog – what’s one more plate?

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My Year in Review – 2019

31 Dec

It is the final day of the year (and indeed the decade) so I thought I would do a quick and thoroughly arbitrary review of my 2019.

It’s been a pretty good year for me, certainly better than last year, so here’s hoping that pattern continues into the ’20s.

Oh, and we’re all agreed it’s straight into flapper dresses and feather headbands tomorrow, right?

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A game of patience

5 Dec

The inspiration for this post was my rather splendid new Christmas jumper, which you can see in the photo below. Christmas jumpers have become a bit of a thing in recent years (I know they were around before that, but they were mocked rather than mandatory) and I didn’t have one last year, so I decided to make one for this Christmas.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…
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By hook or by crook

23 Nov

Anyone who has seen me out and about in Glasgow recently may have spotted me, hook in hand, working away at a large blue and white object. This is my Christmas jumper which I have been crocheting for what feels like aeons (since last winter, actually, with a big break for the summer) and which I intend to finish before I go carol singing on the 7th of December.

YARN WITH CROCHET HOOKS
Image by Davina Harrison on Flickr

But crochet hooks aren’t only good for giving me repetitive strain injury, they also have a variety of household uses – so much so that I think every home should have at least one.

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