Life With The Lid Off (eBook)

The winner of The Alan Titchmarsh People's Author national competition tells of the travails of family life with wit and warmth. Like many women after a divorce, Nicola Hodgkinson found herself facing a stark reality. With three young children to raise, a ramshackle cottage by the sea she had a choice: to wallow in self pity or pull herself together and get on with it. She chose the latter. And with her choice came the decision to embrace a more casual approach to parenting, convinced as she was that fresh air, a positive outlook and the freedom to learn from mistakes would be good for the whole family. And so life with the lid off, began.This is a book about all the magic, and the chaos, of family existence. Steering her way through village life, Nicola discovers the hazards that solo domesticity can bring, from a disgraced cat sailing through the window into a jam-and-scone cottage tea sale, to a car which acquires a resident mouse. Constantly surrounded by a haphazard menagerie, along the way we meet a spirit donkey, a pig with empty-nest syndrome and a lot of quails. As Nicola learns to muddle through, and even delight in, a less than perfect existence, Life with the Lid Off is a brilliant, profound and funny evocation of a universal theme: how to find yourself again amongst the hurly burly sandwich of family life.'This is the most wonderful story. A very worthy winner of the People's Author' competition' Alan Titchmarsh'

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The winner of the Alan Titchmarsh 'People's Author' national competition tells of the travails of family life with wit and warmth.'I gaze down and see your garden, the gate hanging off its hinges, the mess, your children running around half naked like little street urchins. It spoils the view entirely'When single mother Nicola Hodgkinson decided to follow her rural dream, it involved transporting her young family - three rowdy children, her beloved horse, a wilful donkey and two single-minded bantams - to a ramshackle cottage in an idyllic seaside village. The family soon attracts the horrified attention of nosey neighbours, and annoys motorists by hogging country lanes with a horse-drawn caravan. But amid the chaos, the magic of family life shines through, peppered with humour, love, moments of high drama, and nostalgia.LIFE WITH THE LID OFF is a brilliant, profound and funny evocation of a universal theme: how to find yourself again amongst the hurly burly of family life.