new FREE Paranormal short story and Catch-Up Post

Survival of the Fittest

by Natasha Duncan-Drake

Lil is the Sheriff of a small rural town and its chief witch - she keeps the balance between the supernaturals and the humans. When Dan Winters, alpha male of the local werewolf pack, shows up dead, she must prevent a supernatural showdown.

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Catch-Up

I know it's been a while since I have posted anything and I wanted to let everyone know that it's not because I have abandonned this blog. I will be coming back properly late July/early August and hopefully I will also get a few posts in before then.

My Dad is having chemo for prostate cancer at the moment and he has just had his penultimate dose of six. This sometimes leaves him unable to get out of bed, let alone drive and my Mum doesn't have a licence, which, during the week, leaves me as the only person who can drive her shopping etc. I also have to take my Dad to all his appointments. This has been eating into my time.

I've also finally admitted that it has been stressing me out as well. The whole family is affected by it and it has eaten a lot of my get up and go. Especially when my Dad collapsed a few weeks back and had to be admitted to hospital. He's much better now and they have him on all the good drugs to see him through, but the side effect of one of those drugs is that it makes him even more tired, so he's not really up to doing much except in the last week before his next treatment (they are every three weeks). Hence even more of the rest of the family having to pitch in.

All his results are good, except for the fatigue, and his consultant is very possitive and is pretty sure the cancer is beaten. So we're all breathing a sigh of relief and looking to the finishing gate.

To any who are going through similar things, my heart goes out to you. This is something that is very hard to understand until it is your family that is going through it. I never really understood how it puts a toll on those around the person having treatment as well as the one who is ill. When my Mum had breast cancer nearly 15 years ago my Dad was always there as the pillar of strength to take the strain.

Best wishes to all and see you soon on the blog.

My Parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary

So yesterday we were all celebrating with my parents on their 50th wedding anniversary. This was my fridge before the do :) - and that was only 2/3rds of the bubbly cooling off.

We had a service in church where Mummy had a replacement engagement ring blessed (her original one wore through and it was going to cost thousands of pounds to repair it) and Daddy had his resized engagement ring re-blessed (they did the whole retaking of vows, nuptial mass and having wedding rings reblessed on their 40th, so they decided to do something different this time :)). We sang lovely hymns and Soph and I sang "Fields of Gold" and "The Gaelic Blessing" (or the Garlic Dressing as everyone I know who has ever sung it refers to it ;)) for them with all of their friends in attendance.

Then we had a champagne reception in the church with the most wonderful canapés. We have friends who run their own catering company and we were going to hire them normally, but they insisted on doing it for cost because it was Mummy and Daddy. The food was amazing. If you're in Kent and need a caterer, they are awesome and I can put you in touch - I would post their details, but I don't actually know them yet since we organised everything over a cup of tea etc - need to get their card.

There were over 100 people there and it was so lovely to see how happy everyone was for Mummy and Daddy. We had their wedding vid showing on the wall (Uncle Ken has a colour camera at the time, which was unusual for home film making, so everyone got to see what everyone looked like then in full technicolour :)).

Then they had a few people back to their house and we did our best to eat what was left of the food :). There was so much and it was so yummy. I was especially fond of these little crab,  savoury biscuit (little crackers to my US friends, not scones ;)) and cucumber canapés - I may have eaten a few ;). We overdid buying the wine a little and now have bottles of the stuff left, but never let it be said it will go to waste in our family ::g::.

Rob hasn't sorted the photos yet or I'd post some, so you'll have to do with the fridge for now :).

It was such a wonderful day fully of love and laughter and happiness. I wish the same to every one.