Blog: Mel's Muse - Archive for June 2009

Les Holidays Anglaise

Posted: Monday, 22nd June 2009

If you don’t mind having to flush the odd, alien, pubic hair from the shower tray, and polish your cutlery before eating, les holidays anglaise take a lot of beating. I am not, you understand, referring, here, to the fortnight in an Eastbourne hotel or boarding house favoured by my parents’ generation during my childhood, when homemade knitted, or shirred-elastic bathing costumes, deck chairs and windbreaks featured alongside jelly fish, jellied eels, rolled up trouser legs and corner-knotted handkerchief sunhats.

THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING SARTORIALLY WRONG-FOOTED

No! The sort of holiday to which I refer is the touring-the-countryside, stop-a-night-or-two-here, and a-day-or-two-there variety on which we embarked earlier in the week.

Articles on related themes: Life, Faith & Other Stuff; Occasional Silliness

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Feuding Families v The Stability A Single Parent Can Provide

Posted: Monday, 15th June 2009

“Children with feuding parents 'more likely to have underage sex and do drugs.'” * (see link below.) The Daily Telegraph heading caught my eye because it so precisely mirrors my own experience and philosophy. Divorce may be cited as an unstabilising factor in a child’s life but, until now, there has been little research undertaken to show that it may be the lesser of two evils.

FAMILY FEUDING, INFIDELITY & FORGIVENESS

Much of my early marriage, in the late sixties and early seventies, was peaceful simply because I buttoned my lip and behaved as the submissive wife that I believed I should be.

When You Marry Again, Are You Expecting A Replacement Parent For Your Children?

Posted: Friday, 12th June 2009

Continuing the series of excerpts from Mel’s book on Successful Step Parenting, we come now to the sensitive issue of wedding plans, and what to call the new person in mummy’s or daddy’s life.

Many of the practical details of converting two families into one stepfamily will, necessarily, have been thrashed out prior to the wedding. Based on those discussions, a number of decisions may well have been put into operation. Some of them, such as what type of wedding service you hope for, may be dictated by the facilities available.

The Structure Of An Article: Think Base, Building & Boundaries

Posted: Wednesday, 10th June 2009

Part 6 of 6 in the Series on Article Writing

The secrets of article writing may be thought of in terms of a building project:

Base
Building
Boundaries

BASE: LEAD TECHNIQUES

This is your lead paragraph, the opening of your article, details of which I posted last month under the title Lead Techniques When Writing An Article. Without a firm base on which to begin, your article will simply not stand up. So today we’re going to look at three aspects on writing an article from the perspective of sentence and paragraph construction.

Successful Step Parenting: Dealing With The Loss Of A Parent

Posted: Friday, 5th June 2009

Whenever the subject of single parents marrying again arises, there is a tendency to think that the greatest consideration should be given to the impact of divorce on children. Those coping with the loss of a parent through death appear to receive less in the way of attention. Perhaps the concept of a ‘replacement parent’ is perceived, by onlookers, to be a net gain? But this simplification of complex emotions shows a complete lack of understanding, and grossly under-estimates the problems which such attitudes may foster in the resulting stepfamily.

The issues break broadly into three:

The emotions of the child dealing with the loss of a parent.
Articles on related themes: Stepfamilies

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How To Structure An Article For Success: Eight Essentials

Posted: Wednesday, 3rd June 2009

Part 5 of 6 in a Series on Article Writing

The structure of an article – that is the components that make it first grab our attention and then read on – barely register, if at all, when we pick up a newspaper, or read a blog. It’s a little like cleaning your teeth, or showering: either is a function which requires little or no thought, but which, once accomplished, has a pleasurable outcome! Well, perhaps that’s an analogy too far.