Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Blogtastic!After just six weeks of blogging, “Wife in the North” ex-Sunday Times journalist, Judith 0’Reilly's account of ‘Just how grim can it get up north? Very. One woman's lonely journey into the Northern heartlands’ has won a £70,000 book deal from Viking publishers.
Moving to Northumberland from London was not my idea. My husband was in fact the only one terribly keen on the move. When I asked my younger son what he thought, he confided: “Bears might eat me”. “There are no bears,” I told him as I looked into the darkness and the growling started.
Here’s some extracts…
Tuesday December 12 2006
Inside my particular country cottage though, it is hell. Five of us squished together (six if you count the nanny) in what is effectively a two-bedroomed, toy-strewn hovel in which three adults are working full-time. It is like something from 18th century pre-revolution England - all cottage industry and screaming children with a little less smallpox.
December 15 2006
I had to leave behind not just the friends I had acquired and cherished over years but my hairdresser, my beauty consultant, my nutritionist, my masseur, my homeopath, my osteopath and my therapist.
January 27 2007
If you ever wondered what happens at a hunt, I can assure you that the riders come along in muddy land rovers pulling horseboxes; they do not just leap out of the 19th century print your favorite uncle hung in the hallway in the shadow of the grandfather clock. I am not knocking hunting. The outfits are great.
January 28 2007
In two weeks time we are due to move into an unfurnished, rented house in the village to allow the builders to start work on knocking through the cottages to create that dream home I was promised. I suspect our stone-built rented house is cold. When I asked the estate agent whether it was a cold house, he looked at me in that blank way people up here do when I talk about the cold. "It has radiators," he pointed to two very small radiators hung on an immense magnolia wall.
I know, I know… Much gnashing of teeth in the blogsphere
