Milestones

Yesterday I achieved something I had previously considered impossible. I completed a 5K run with Cybi Striders running club after completing a Couch to 5K programme with the club.

Now that may not be a huge deal for some people but as someone who is very much deskbound by virtue the nature of my writing, I never considered running was something for me. Add in a profound lack of fitness and I considered the very idea of running for any length of time ludicrous. But every week I turned up and met an amazing group of people in the process.

At the end of every session, we had homework slips with details of the amount of running we needed to do in between our weekly sessions together with motivational quotes. The last one was:

One of the greatest feelings is accomplishing something that you once thought was impossible.

It proves that with determination and persistence, we can reach our goals and when we do, the sense of achievement is incredible.

So here’s to the impossible and may we keep trying to make it possible.

Happy World Book Day!

World Book Day gives us a wonderful opportunity to remember the books we love as well as an opportunity to think about the next book we want to read. I read books for the way they make me feel. Emotions are why I write after all. So here is my roundup of books which have stayed with me even though it might have been years since I’ve read them.

An Unexpected Countess by Laurie Benson gave me a hero, Hart, to fall in love with.

The Duke Secret Wife by Kate Walker was the first Mills and Boon book I ever read and the image of the heroine, Isabelle, at the opening of the book is still with me.

The Humans by Matt Haig made me laugh and cry and feel uplifted.

To kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I think this one speaks for itself.

Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey is an epic love story which weaves World War II with the present day.

Do you have any books that have stayed with you?