Blog Takeover Day

Hello, I’m Maggie Dearly and Sue’s asked me to take over her blog for today. I’m thrilled, if a little bemused, because I’ve always thought of myself as a secondary character in her novel. Surely she’d want one of the main protagonists to scribble something - the MPs being Alex and Roisin* not forgetting Sandra. Alex is my son, by the way, the lovely Roisin is his employee (at least in the beginning)and Sandra is...well, maybe I’ll keep that to myself for now. Don’t want any spoilers do we?

Where was I? Oh yes, Sue assures me I’m important because my role is pivotal to the plot - without me there’d be no conflict.

‘And we all know why a story needs conflict, don’t we, Maggie?’

And there was me thinking she’d only invented my character because every good family saga**needs a clichéd, menopausal widow to bounce clever dialogue off.

So now I’m here, being pivotal, what am I expected to talk about?

My only claim to fame is I was once sacked from a charity shop, for calling Cherie Blair a ‘F*****g greedy cow’. As I told her security at the time how was I to know she’d come to officially open the premises? She looked nothing like the grinning Cheshire cat we see on the telly. I thought she was one of the girls from the pie shop next door come to get her hands on the best stuff before we opened. And for the record, you can’t sack someone from voluntary work.

Alex was a bit put out at the time. He didn’t say as much but I think he was worried my actions would reflect on his business. As if the whole of Throcking Pava would boycott his cafe because the owner’s mother had denied the then PM’s wife a 50p bud vase. Honestly! He worries too much. He takes after his father...

Talking of which, I do miss my husband, William, despite what Roisin thinks she saw. Okay, I admit, Mr Chen*** was in my house naked but everything else is entirely down to her imagination. Except for the wacky baccy. That I do regret. That and a certain course of action taken almost three decades ago.

Still, we came through it all in the end. Well, we had to or the novel would have an unsatisfactory conclusion and we can’t have that in a best-seller can we?

TTFN!

* ‘Roisin’ (pronounced Roe-sheen) has one of those funny accents above the ‘o’ but I don’t know how to find the symbol on here and everyone calls her Raz in the book so I don’t know why Sue’s so insistent I point it out but she's the writer so I have to indulge her.

**Saga isn’t how Sue would describe it. More a romantic comedy...about family loyalties and bonds...and other family stuff. So a saga, really.

***Zsui Chen, holistic practitioner – responsible for flushing my colon once a month.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY SALLY QUILFORD AND THANKS FOR THE IDEA BEHIND THIS BLOG ENTRY!