Christina Hollis: Spring Cleaning Fever...

Love In Every Stitch...

I hate housework. You get the place looking great, then someone wrecks the magazine stack looking for something, or a cupboard bursts open, sending  paperwork all over the floor. All your hard work, undone in seconds! So when I heard about a system that means you tidy up once in your lifetime and then just twiddle round the edges, I had to find out more.

Over the past month, I've been following a reality TV program called Back in Time For The Weekend. The brave Ashby-Hawkins family spent last year living for a week in each of the last decades of the Twentieth Century. From the post-Second World War deprivations almost up to the present day, they've learned what it was like to live as a family in changing times.

One of the most interesting facts brought home to them was the explosion in the amount of "stuff" we all accumulate. In the Nineteen Forties and Fifties, the UK was on its knees. Food was rationed. There was no money to spare, but that hardly mattered as the shops were practically empty. Presents were often hand-made. Repair, re-use and recycle were habits, long before they became Green watchwords.

These days, all our homes are so stuffed with electronic gadgets, fitness equipment and leisure goods, cars are parked on the street so garages can be used as storage space. Canny people are making a fortune by providing secure units excess items owned by people who can't bear to throw anything away.

All that really struck a chord with me. Tottering Towers is totally stuffed with...well, stuff. Ninety percent of my housework time is spent shuffling things from place to place. Back in Time For The Weekend showcased one method of dealing with it. Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying brings tough love to the closet.

Marie is a great believer in only keeping those things which create a spark of joy within you.  It follows that, the less you have, the easier it is to keep your house tidy. That's the theory, but it means unless something is either beautiful or useful, it has to go. For a start, every piece of clothing you've been meaning to mend, update, or wear again once you lose weight must go straight to the charity shop. Be honest—when are you going to have time or willpower to do anything with it all? I asked myself that question. Within two hours, I filled four sacks of clothes weighing nearly seventy pounds in total! You could almost hear the foundations of Tottering Towers sigh with relief.

Then spring cleaning fever really took hold. It was hard, especially when I came across a trunk of baby clothes.  My smallest baby is now sixteen years old! As Tom Lehrer sang, "Sentiment will not endear it..." so nearly all of it had to go, although I confess to keeping their christening robes, and two little outfits I'd made for them. I'm not a natural knitter, so remembering the time, tears and effort it took me to create such sweet and delicate garments is a boost to my ego, as well as a keepsake. I'm thinking of having them framed!

Find out more at
  myBook.to/HeartOfAHostage

The great thing about spring cleaning is the old place looks lovely, as there's hardly enough stuff left for us to get it untidy again—at least until the next shopping expedition...

In Heart Of A Hostage, my latest book for The Wild Rose Press, a disaster means Maia has to stop living like a princess and face real life. She copes by spring cleaning the castle where she's being held hostage.  I don't believe domestic engineering is solely women's work, but scruffy, threadbare surroundings suck all the joy from life. Maia beats the men at their own game by proving she can rise to any occasion. I'm hoping a rigorous clear-out of my office inspires me to do the same!

Are you a hoarder? Or can you dispense with things the second they've served their purpose?

When she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping, Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women.  Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at christinahollis.com

Her current release, Heart Of A Hostage, is published by The Wild Rose Press and available at myBook.to/HeartOfAHostage  worldwide, and from http://bit.ly/1iNf2Gw in the US.

CJ Carmichael: Cleaning & Purging

Salutations!

It’s May. I can’t believe it. April was a blur of writing for me. Today I’m putting the final touches on Forgotten before sending it off to my editor. My publishing team should have the book out by May 21 and I’m very excited about that.

The few times I’ve poked my head out of my writing cave the past while have been to deal with the renovations Mike is supervising around here. We’ve re-done the ceilings, painted, and updated our kitchen sink and island. It’s all part of my natural inclination to clean & purge before summer comes. (And then I just want to be outside!)

Part of the purging process this year, is reducing the number of backlist books I have stored in boxes in the basement. They’re not doing any good there! So I’m working hard to give away as many as I can.

If you’d like to help me with this, please sign up for my newsletter—I draw names from that list all the time and send surprise packages of autographed backlist books.

Or, if you happen to work or volunteer or frequently visit a senior’s care home, please send me an email through my website and give me the address of the care home and I’ll send them some books.

Do you get swept up by Spring Cleaning plans? If so, what are you focusing on this year?

Happy Cleaning & Purging!

CJ Carmichael

Writing From Life

Photo by Colin Smith 

I'm involved in a major non-fiction project at the moment, charting local customs through the year. With so much of our lives conducted online nowadays, it's a worry that many things we used to enjoy will go into decline, in the same way a lot of village shops and independent booksellers have disappeared. Research does get me out and about, but I still spend most of my working days driving a desk. Writing doesn't use up many calories (more's the pity!) so this weekend I'm starting some heavy-duty spring cleaning to  counteract all the comfort eating I've been doing during this long, cold, miserable winter. 

Here in England we've just celebrated Shrove Tuesday, which is both the traditional time for a clear-out of tempting ingredients from your store cupboard before the Lenten fast (if you are devout) and a fantastic excuse to stuff yourself silly with various sweet or savoury pancakes. Our new young hens have been laying an egg each per day right through the winter, which gives pancakes  a lovely rich yellow colour. I used 2 eggs, 8oz flour and enough milk to make a fairly thin batter (around 15 fl oz) and then cooked a stack of pancakes to eat with maple syrup or  lemon and sugar. That definitely didn't help the diet, so today I'm going to start on the ground floor of the house and work steadily through every room until the whole place is immaculate. Well, that's the theory...

Photo by J. Eudes 

It's not only Tottering Towers that is getting spring fever. The end of winter means our colonies of honeybees are beginning to get out and about. The catkins in the hazel coppice tempt them on fine days, and they soon find our snowdrops and hellebores. Once all that pollen gets back to the hives, the various queen bees will start laying. Each colony will expand rapidly from about 5,000 insects to around 30,000, and pressure on space inside the hive makes them think about swarming. It's a race against time at this time of year to get all the spare equipment ready to anticipate swarms. All the old, worn out honeycomb has to be melted down and the frames cleaned ready for the new season. This year I've managed to refine over twelve pounds of wax. I can't decide whether to use it to make cosmetics, candles and polish or trade it for more bee supplies. 

If I made beeswax polish, I could use it after my planned spring-clean and fill the house with its warm, wonderful smell.   I normally hate housework, but the prospect of doing that is very tempting!

Do you have any little rituals to send winter on its way?

Christina Hollis has written both Historical fiction and Modern Romance/Presents for Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd, as well non-fiction for national magazines and prize-winning short stories. Her current release, Lady Rascal is available for download from  Amazon, iTunes  and many other retailers, while her next book,  Changing Fortunes, will be published in the summer. She loves to hear from readers - you can contact her through her website or her blog.