Wonderful World of Ali McNamara...

Hope and Happiness in Bluebell Wood will be published in July this year.

Like so many others, my bird table has kept me sane throughout lock-down. Watching the comings and goings of the birds, completely unaffected by a global pandemic, has helped me realise that life still goes on in the natural world, even if our world has been temporarily turned upside down.

And that’s just what Ava finds when her own world is turned upside down, and she retreats to a cottage in the calm and peace of Bluebell Wood, where to begin with the wild birds and a little dog called Merlin are her only friends...

You can pre-order here now

Here’s more about the story if you just can’t wait!

Ava loves city life but when something happens to make her feel unsafe, she retreats to the calm and quiet of Bluebell Wood. The once high-flying Ava now locks herself away in her fairy-tale cottage, only leaving to explore the trails of the nearby woods or to potter in the garden with her dog, Merlin.

When Ava begins to feed the wild birds that flock to her bird table, they start leaving her trinkets of appreciation in return. The gifts seem innocent at first, but they soon take on a deeper meaning.

It isn't until Ava meets Callum, the handsome parish priest, that she can't help but wonder if the birds might have been trying to get her out of the house all along. But will their curious behaviour help to heal Ava, and transform her and Callum into the lovebirds they clearly long to be?

Good days and Bad ones...

One of the many reasons I looked so happy on my birthday, was because just a few days earlier I looked like the second photo and I wondered if I’d be able to celebrate my fiftieth in the way I wanted to.

This is living with chronic illness. One day you look absolutely fine as if there’s nothing wrong with you, and the next, like you’re on deaths door.

The thing is unless you live with someone with chronic illness, you rarely see them looking ill. Because it’s those days we’re not on show, we don’t take photos and we don’t talk to anyone.

You don’t see us looking pale, drawn and in my case with one eye bigger than the other! (It’s one of the many signs I get when I’ve done too much.) You don’t hear us slurring our words down the phone or over a Zoom call, because we don’t speak to you that day. You don’t see us limping around the house, often using mobility aids, because our muscles ache and our joints are painfully sore. You don’t see us bed bound because our bodies and minds just won’t work that day, however hard we try to buck-up, knuckle down, or push-on-through. If only it were that simple.

So the next time you see someone you know with chronic illness on social media or in person looking great. Yes, by all means tell them (we all like compliments!) but just remember if you’re seeing them at all, it means they’re having a good day. The days either side might be unbearably miserable for them.

We’re in the process of scanning all our old photos right now. So I managed to find a few pics of some of my other milestone birthdays along the way to fifty.

My actual ‘Birth’day - the day I was born.

I think I might have been about one here in the bath!

Ten years old (I still remember that pinafore dress!)

My 18th Birthday (check out that hair!)

My 21st Birthday (with my then boyfriend, now husband of 26 years 😍)

8. My 30th Birthday (At Center Parcs - my hair was still dark!)

9 & 10 My 40th Birthday (At Disney World, Florida)

So what for my 50th?

Clearly we’re all in lock-down in the UK currently, so I can’t go anywhere. Instead (until we’re allowed to travel again and I have enough energy for a long haul trip.) we’re bringing one of my favourite places to me...

For the next two days (to pace things out a little!) all things New York City will be coming to Chez McNamara! 🇺🇸🗽

A NYC themed 50th Birthday? I can’t wait 🥰

I’ve been a little quiet on social media lately - like everyone I’ve been busy preparing for Christmas, and this has used up much of my already depleted energy stores far too quickly, so I’m right now I’m feeling pretty pooped most of the time! At the same time I’m attempting to edit my next book: ‘The Tiny Treasures of Bluebell Wood’ which will be out in July next year. 🕊

With everything going on, summer 2021 seems such a long way away right now, doesn’t it? I usually love this time of year, it’s by far my favourite. But even I’m already longing for some sunshine on my face and warmth on my body.☀️

It’s been a rotten year for most, and yet Covid still isn’t quite finished with us just yet. As we enter the strangest festive season I can ever remember, many of us find ourselves hurriedly changing plans at the last minute and tearfully abandoning those annual traditions we’ve kept alive in our families for so long. 🎁 I always try and look on the bright side of everything, and I’d desperately like to feel positive about the coming new year, but it’s tough right now with such uncertainty in all our lives.

However, January won’t be all doom and gloom in the McNamara house... I’m only turning 50 on the 14th!! 😲🎂 What? How has that happened? When I was twenty, fifty seemed so old! It won’t be quite the celebrations I’d always imagined I’d have when I turned fifty. That’s partly due to Covid and partly due to my ongoing health problems, but I’m sure any celebrations we do manage will be much enjoyed, and any bigger plans can be postponed until a more suitable time. Believe me, I intend to wring as much out of having my half-century in lock-down as long as I possibly can! 😉

But this very strange and often scary time we’re living through, won’t last forever. Life might never be quite the same as it was before Covid, but I genuinely hope and try to believe not all of the change will bad.

So however and whoever you’re celebrating this very strange festive season with, I truly hope you’re happy, healthy, and you find some much needed joy as we all look forward to better times to come.

Take care & very much love,

Ali x

The first, (inspired by all the lovely displays I’ve seen on Instagram is being super creative by building an Autumn fireplace display and an Autumn wreath. 🍂🎃🍁

I’d intended hanging the wreath ring on our front door, but I liked it so much I decided to hang it inside on a mirror instead!

The second thing I’ve loved doing is wearing dungarees for the first time in decades! I’d wanted to buy some for ages, but I’d put it off because I thought they wouldn’t suit me. And I’ll admit they aren’t the most flattering things I’ve ever worn, but and most importantly, I’ve absolutely LOVED wearing them! ❤️

#DoWhatMakesYouHappy

#Create

#WearDungarees

#Autumn

🇮🇹An Italian edition of Secrets & Seashells at Rainbow Bay 🌈

🇫🇷A new edition of the French translation of From Notting Hill with Love...Actually 💙

🇮🇹And three new paperback editions (with gorgeous buttery soft jackets!) of some of my previous Italian translations originally in hardback. 💚

We’ve just had a lovely two week break - me, my husband and my (grown-up!) children. We didn’t go anywhere to stay, we simply had a fortnight staycation - the true meaning of the word - a holiday from home - not how it’s recently been adapted to mean simply a holiday in the UK! When did taking a holiday in the UK need a different name than simply ‘holiday?’ Just because you don’t fly to a foreign country but choose to stay away from your home in a cottage or a hotel, it’s still a holiday!

Anyway I digress... We had a proper staycation from home. We all took two weeks off work and had days out, mixed with rest days (mainly for me to recover and re-charge.) chilled out at home. I did no social media and only glanced at Instagram occasionally and sometimes Twitter for the news.

And it was great! We visited lots of places close to our home we never get time to usually, and discovered a few new ones as well. We ate as though we were on holiday, and the best thing - we got to sleep in our own beds every night!

Sadly, chronic illness doesn’t pause for a holiday - if only it would! So how did I manage all this with my M.E.? Well, because we took two weeks I was able to pace myself by having alternate rest days, and boy did I need them! Rest really had to be rest to make this holiday work, and I went everywhere that involved any significant walking on my scooter. But even though I rested when I could, towards the back end of the second week it did start to catch up with me, and my internal batteries weren’t quite charging up enough to cope with a couple of outings we had planned, so the last few days have been more about rest and less about going out for me.

All-in-all we all enjoyed a fab, if slightly different sort of (socially distanced, mask wearing) holiday than we are used to. But it worked for us this year and we all agreed we’d had a lovely time.

So tomorrow it’s back to work, and for me that means editing book number 12!

The following photos are just a few of things we got up to:

*Woburn Safari

Burghley House and park

Friends Lego

Antiques centre finds.

Rushden Lakes

Pancakes! 

#mymejourney

As always still lots of work to do, but for now it’s two weeks off for a staycation with my family! 🙌🏻

The book will published in Summer 2021 but for now here’s a few clues (in the form of images) to what

‘The Tiny Treasures of Bluebell Wood’ (Already available to pre-order on Amazon!) might be about...

Fact or Fiction? St Ives or St Felix?

When I first set out to create a fictional Cornish seaside town for my novel The Little Flower Shop by the Sea, I knew I had to base it on St Ives. I’ve taken more holidays in this beautiful Cornish resort than anywhere else, and even now not many years pass without a visit there – be it in spring, autumn or winter. We tend to avoid the height of summer; it gets very busy and very expensive to rent a property then!

I didn’t want to use the real St Ives to set my first story in, because when you write about an actual place it’s important to stay true to the location (otherwise someone will always point out where you’ve gone wrong!) and it can often be limiting to what you want to write about. But St Felix (named after my friend’s son who was born while I was writing Little Flower Shop!) is still pretty close to the real St Ives. It has the same harbour with a little lighthouse at the end and its main shops – including Poppy’s flower shop and Kate’s craft shop from my new book – are on Harbour Street, which in real life is inspired by the infamous Fore Street in St Ives where all the lovely art galleries, craft and gift shops are based, along with the many Cornish pasty shops which St Felix and St Ives both share an abundance of!

St Felix, like St Ives, is set on a peninsula that juts out into the sea, so it’s surrounded by water on three sides, and many of the locations the characters visit are exactly the same in both towns – for example in Kate and Clara’s Curious Cornish Craft Shop Kate and Jack, the two main characters, share a few tender moments up on a hill with a little chapel at the top looking out to sea. This is exactly like The Island in St Ives with the beautiful but tiny St Nicholas chapel. Anyone who knows the town well will be able to picture exactly where the characters are at any one time, and anyone who doesn’t will hopefully be able to imagine exactly what St Ives is like.

I often reference the many surfers that frequent Porthmeor beach in St Ives in the stories, and in Daisy’s Vintage Cornish Camper Van the main character Ana arrives for the first time in St Felix by train, the same way many tourists and holidaymakers arrive in St Ives every year on the incredibly pretty coastal rail line which runs into the town.

In Kate and Clara’s Curious Cornish Craft Shop the story references the artist communities of both the 1950s and the present day which St Felix and St Ives share, and I based part of this story on the famous St Ives artist Alfred Wallis, who became Wilfred Jones in my story.

So far, I’ve set three novels in St Felix. I enjoy going back there to write about the residents, just as much as my readers seem to be enjoying revisiting it with me! And I’m sure this new novel won’t be the last time we visit St Felix together, or the last time I visit its inspiration, St Ives.

Ali McNamara

Here’s some of the fab photos you’ve sent me of your copies of the book. 🧵✂️🧶

I found this vintage Simplicity magazine full of patterns and outfits from the fifties. I like to think Clara might have enjoyed making some of them.

🧵✂️🧶

🎨There is a character in my new book called Freddie who is inspired by the Cornish painter Alfred Wallis.

🎨Alfred was a Cornish fisherman and artist who took up painting late in life after his wife’s death. He was self taught and never took a painting lesson in his life.

🎨His work was described as ‘naive.’ He improvised with materials, mostly painting on cardboard ripped from packing boxes and using a limited palette of paint bought from ships' chandlers.

🎨Alfred was discovered by two artists Ben Nicholson and Kit Wood who were establishing a painting colony in St Ives. They tried to help him promote his paintings, but his work didn’t become recognised until after his death and he died a pauper.

🎨You can still see Alfred’s House in St Ives, and you can stay even there by renting it as a holiday cottage.

🎨I've posted just a few of his paintings, some of which you can see in the Tate Gallery in St Ives. His ornate grave, which is decorated with tiles by the potter Bernard Leach, is in the Barnoon cemetery in St Ives over looking Porthmeor Beach.

I visited there last year and said a secret “thank you” to the man who inspired ‘Freddie.’ 🎨

Because it’s Publication Day today! 🥳

( I didn’t have a lovely pale green bicycle like the one on the cover, so this is the closest I could get 😉)

If you buy a copy I truly hope you enjoy it. Why not let me know by tagging me in a photo of you with the book on social media, and I love to see photos of it in the shops too!

It’s publication day tomorrow! But where can you get your copy of Kate & Clara’s Curious Cornish Craft Shop? 🤔

In person: 🚶🏻‍♂️🏃🏼‍♀️👩🏼‍🦽

With your groceries from

Tescos, Sainsbury’s, or Asda.

🍏🍞🥫🛒

Or from your local high street at Waterstones and many independent bookshops.

📚📕📘📚

Staying home or still shielding? 🏠 🔑

Then order a copy online to be delivered from Amazon or Waterstones.

👨🏼‍💻💻🖥👩🏻‍💻

Or you can download directly to your device or e-reader. It’s also on audio for you to listen to!

📲🎧📲🎧

Wherever you get your copy from, I really hope you enjoy Kate & Clara’s story.

If you do, let me and everyone else you know, know too! 😉

Two Days to Go...

I thought my ‘Spoonie’ friends might like to see the dedication in my new book.

Writing has never been as hard as it is currently. The still inspiration is there, the ideas are definitely flowing, but the energy to write as much and as often as I would like, is sadly not.

Limiting my writing to shorter bursts is better for pacing, but not for word flow.

I find it deeply frustrating, but like so many there’s no alternative. I’m just grateful this is what I do for a living. If I had any other job I’d definitely be unemployed by now!

#cornishcraftshop 🎨✂️🧵 #23rdJuly

#mymejourney

It’s only one week to go before my new book hits the bookshelves and e-readers of this world!

Except this year it’s a slightly different world we find ourselves living in... If you don’t think you’ll be able to get to your local supermarket or bookshop this year to buy Kate & Clara’s story, why not order it from an online retailer like Amazon or Waterstones, or even your local independent bookshop, and have it delivered right to your door.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kate-Claras-Curious-Cornish-Craft/dp/0751574333

https://www.waterstones.com/book/kate-and-claras-curious-cornish-craft-shop/ali-mcnamara/9780751574333#reviews

🎨✂️🧵🧶