The Imaginary Friend Bloghop

Welcome to my very first bloghop - I'm really excited to be hosting this today, alongside the fabulous Kyra Lennon.

We will be reading all of the posts, and giving a prize each to our favourite entries.

Kyra is offering a three chapter critique, and I'm giving a £10/$10 Amazon voucher (or £10 Waterstone's voucher, if you're in the UK and you prefer).



I never do anything by halves - I had twin imaginary friends called Iccance and Occance. I have no idea where they came from, or how long they stayed or how they came to be so called. They were neither boys nor girls but something entirely different.

And - boy! - they were very naughty.

They used to make my toys messy after I'd tidied them up, they used to smear my face with ice-cream when I was eating; and it was definitely them who pushed over our telly, right onto its screen and breaking it!

I'm certain that on more than one occasion they had to stand in the corner with their hands on their heads - separate corners, obviously, or they'd have got into even more trouble.

Beside that though, I can't remember much about them - so I went off to ask Mum. "There were two of them," she said incitefully.

"Yes, they were twins," I said.

"Oh, were they?" she replied, proving that poor memory runs in the family.

I thought I remembered teaching them how to read, with the help of my blackboard and pure academic skill, until Mum recalled that it was my baby sister I taught, so she doesn't really count.

So that's the poorly remembered (and now immortalised)

story of Iccance and Occance.

Now I'm off to read yours!

HMV in trouble

Yesterday I went to the gym, came home, messed around with some emails, went to a meeting at work, came home, read some blogs, ate a meal and went to work.

In short, I didn't see the news. So it was a big shock when I finally came home at 9pm to see that HMV is in administration. When I was in there before Christmas, the queue was halfway around the (fairly large) shop - it looked busy and solid. It was great to browse, to pick things up that I may not have just because it was next to the item I did want to buy.

And now it might disappear from our high streets, leaving large empty spaces. HMV have always been there - like WH Smith, Coronation Street (although I don't watch, so please don't attempt a conversation with me - it will end badly) and drumsticks. I hung out there when I was younger, probably annoying the staff by not actually buying anything (... aah, maybe I get it now!), but finding some great new bands.

In the UK, the book equivalent is Waterstone's. The idea of our only book chain possibly disappearing fills me with even more horror, but judging by the HMV situation, no shop is safe. Now, I sometimes hate Waterstones - Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight featuring heavily in their window displays, for example - but they also do a lot of things right. My local store has a large local history section which is fascinating. It has a brilliant children's section, and the staff are enthusiastic.

I also love my local independent bookshop, which I mentioned here (as well as being a little bit disparaging of Waterstones... yes, I'm fickle!). My belated New Years Resolution is to shop in shops, to appreciate what lurks in my area, and to keep my fingers crossed that HMV find a solution and are around for a lot longer.

Will you miss HMV if it disappears? Do you shop there?

Do you buy books on the high street, or are you an Amazon shop instead?

Is there room for both?

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Did you see my post about my bloghop? Kyra Lennon and I want to know about your imaginary friends. Click here to sign up. There are a couple of prizes to win for our favourite stories, but you must be following both Kyra and me!

Due to the nature of this post, I may change my prize offer slightly. At the moment I'm offering a £10/$10 Amazon voucher, but if the winner is in the UK, I'll give the choice of a Waterstone's voucher instead - every little helps, so they say!

Announcing a bloghop

Thanks to Kyra for both of the badges
on this page

Today I'm very excited to be announcing my very first bloghop...

I'll be celebrating the one year anniversary of Cat and The Dreamer next month, so on the 1st February I'm hosting the Imaginary Friend Bloghop.

Acting as my co-host is the wonderful Kyra Lennon, who has all the knowledge on how to make this go smoothly.

If you've read Cat and The Dreamer you'll know that Julia, the main character, has a big imagination, and she has an imaginary enemy.

We want to know about your imaginary friend. What were they called? How old were you? Were they naughty or nice? If you didn't have one, were there ever times when you could really have used one? Did you ever set fire to your mum's favourite rug and have to take the blame yourself?

I'll be offering a £10/$10 Amazon gift voucher for my favourite post, and Kyra is kindly offering a three chapter critique for hers.

Just make sure you're following both me and Kyra, sign up below and be ready to share your real or imaginary imaginary friend stories on 1st February!

Thank you to everyone who offered 
to host my blog tour which starts on
the 3rd February. I was very quickly 
able to fill all the slots, and I even
had to decline some offers!