Sunday 26 April 2015

The Story of Us - An Extract

For the first time in seven years, I wrote a poem for my husband for Valentine's Day. It tells the story of our meeting, our early years, our first baby, our wedding, our second baby and our family. I'm not going to publish it all here, because it was written for my husband, but here are a few extracts I wanted to share. 



The Story of Us (An Extract)

(...)Do you remember the things that we used to do?
The drinking, the parties, in our flat for two.
I loved that place, our first home together,
I never thought we’d move out, not then, not ever.
But we had some news, we were starting a family,
we’d no longer be, just Craig and Emily.
I remember your reaction, the smile, the hug,
finishing off with, “I love you, bug”

On 20th March, our girl was born,
our sweet little Eva, on the first spring morn.
She had your eyes, and she had my cheeks,
it wasn’t long before she started to shriek.
She turned our world upside down,
Our princess with a double crown.
That was 2011! Where’s the time gone?
But let’s not stop there, I’m not nearly done(..)

(...)So now we’re married, I’m Mrs Tee,
It’s 2014, we’re having another baby.
Just as we planned, we’re having a boy,
I’d never imagine he could bring us such joy.
It was scary at first, he was born too quick,
But they wrapped him up in a blanket all thick.
We gave him a cuddle, and he held on,
our strong baby boy, our little Jackson.

So we’ve grown to a noisy family of four,
we don’t really drink or party any more.
But who needs that when we’re so complete,
forty little toes on eight little feet.
I’m so glad I met you, you’re simply the best,
I never want it to change, we’ve built our nest.
I’ll love you for always, my husband, my friend,
my favourite, my best, together ‘til the end.

Monday 6 April 2015

My Top 5 Influential Women in Fiction - Number 1

Any regular readers would have found this quite predictable, number one is of course, Hermione Granger from The Harry Potter Series. Hermione appeared in all seven of the Harry Potter books, a key member of Harry's inner circle, the intelligence, the mentor and the best friend.

The reason I have given the number one spot to Hermione, is because she's the character that grew up alongside me. Back in 1998, I was ten years old, a year younger than Hermione was on the release date of 'The Philosophers' Stone' that same year. I too, was a nerdy know-it-all who didn't always fit in, and I also related to that competitive side of her, the side of her that always wanted to win. 


At the beginning of the series, Hermione is all of the above. She seems to latch herself on to Harry and Ron, but they find her annoying and a busybody. As a 'muggle-born', she struggles to make friends at Hogwarts, the witches and wizards see her as an outsider, especially when she turns out to be a better witch than all of them! 

However, as she grows through the series, particularly after the end of the Philosophers' Stone, when she has proven how brave and valued she really is, other aspects of Hermione's personality comes through. As well as her keen intelligence, she also has a very high level of understanding of all dangers that she encounters; where Harry shows no fear and faces anything, regardless of any consequence, and Ron shows a lot of fear and prefers to run, Hermione has a middle ground. With a high-level of understanding, she will look danger in the face, but without that understanding, she would rather plan and strategise. 

Harry, being the main character of the book, has a high profile family background, all of his parental figures have been killed in some way, and towards the end of the book, has given up on a 'regular' family life. Hermione on the other hand, has always had a stable family life, her parents are both dentists who live an everyday 'muggle' life. A key point in the series which truly outlines Hermione's strength is when she erases her parents memory of her every existence. She wanted to keep them safe, and the only way she could do that, was to remove herself from their lives. This act of selflessness shows Hermione's true character; a strong, honest and brave young woman, willing to put others needs before her own. 


A sucker for a romance, I was so pleased when Hermione and Ron finally took their friendship to the next level. Back in the early days of the series, it was implied that Hermione had a soft spot for Harry, however, putting these two together would have been predictable and disappointing, and not a JK Rowling move. Although, reading further through the series, Hermione and Ron became more and more predictable, it was also the relationship that we were all rooting for (along with Harry and Ginny, obviously.) Hermione and Ron contrast eachother perfectly, intelligence vs humour, fear vs bravery, knowledge vs understanding. Throughout the book, romance was always an area of her life that Hermione didn't understand, which is why it took so long for Hermione and Ron to finally get together. For me, coming towards the end of the final book, it was a well-deserved happy ending for Hermione, it wouldn't have been fair for her to end up with anybody else, or to leave her with nobody at all!

Through brewing Polyjuice Potion in the girls toilets, and helping Harry complete the Triwizard Tournament, Hermione's defining moment came in the final novel of the series, The Deathly Hallows. There was an expectation that Harry, Ron and Hermione would search for the Horcruxes together, but when Ron leaves, Harry and Hermione are left to find them alone. Here all of the individual aspects of Hermione's personality that we've seen in snippets so far, culminate into one, her bravery, her strength, her knowledge, her loyalty, fighting alongside Harry to end Voldemort's rise to power. We see Harry and Hermione's friendship blossom for the second time, since the Triwizard Tournament when Harry and Ron avoided each other and she was a go between, but being older now, their friendship seems more powerful and complete. 

Hermione was the heroine of the Harry Potter novels, the question for me is whether the novels would have read the same without her? I think we all know that the answer to that is no.