About.

April 14th 2024 Updated.

My name is Ellen Best, I consider myself very fortunate to be married to John, he persuaded me to give up work so I could concentrate on my writing. Interspersed with adventures.

We live in the county of Suffolk, in the UK. Together we laugh, love and travel to far-off lands. We welcome friends and family into our home. We have a motor home for scenic holidays, beach walks, good food, fun and festival-going. We share our home and motor home with Lilly the rescue dog.

Our lives are punctuated with stories, shared with love and washed down with good food and fine beverages. We like to entertain and have music-filled evenings with new-found friends. Together our adventures keep us young.

The Flint house, it’s our converted Victorian schoolhouse that is getting some serious cosseting; we have been doing it together for years. This ongoing, ever ever-evolving project is home. The house reeks of history, ‘sniff’ I feel myself channelling wonderful Authors as we speak.

This was the second area sorted, (we had to have a bathroom first) the lath and plaster ceiling in this inner hall was hanging down, and there was a mud floor with small red and black checkerboard tiles; only one of three areas that were original when we moved in in 2017. Though I have an office of sorts, I can often be found with bare feet pressed into the cool floor, or with my bum squished into the twisted stairs; gazing at books. Here I drink in the ambience; pencil, notebook or tablet in hand … channelling Jean Brodie; just as you’d expect.

“What is this? Who am I? What am I doing here?”

This Blog is part of my journey, this is where I procrastinate from my manuscript; from my novel. During this process, I have to work hard to not get frustrated. When writing life becomes a bloody, sweaty hike, I come here.
I have put the excitement and secret lives of non-existent people into my work and down on paper. I have characters who live in a place created by me, who live lives of my making, who face obstacles, pain and love; all of my doing. My story has only just begun, it is in the throes of gestation.
“From that first burst of creativity, the speed and exhilarating ride of the word train; I love. Next, I have to work at perfecting it; try not to sanitize it in the process. “It is all in the rewrite. The first and second, third sometimes fourth drafts. “The edits, the return to research again and again to check ‘did I get a date or a law exactly right?’ I need to hone a look or tweak it because I found something new or more interesting. I didn’t want to alter it … I just wanted it to be perfect as it was. So I left it; let it simmer a while.
“Get her done”! One of my virtual friends told me. Sit down and do it I tell myself. Sometimes I’m sick of the characters changing their minds and a good slap is what is needed. Other ideas come into play, new stories that steal time from the first. Before I know it there are several works in progress. That my friends is when I come here and write whimsy.

“I need to write. When other writers get to that hard place, they knit, paint, cook, garden or take photographs; I write. For some, the grammar, typos and punctuation are the easiest parts ( I, however, know where my weaknesses lay). Their slog may be in the beginning at conception, the creative part. I digress let’s bring it back on point.

My resting, clearing cobwebs from my head and taking my mind off the sticky stuff is done here on my Blog. It is with *sigh* a deep breath, (here in my safe place) that you will find me. I am here with words, scribble, story and rhyme, if you look close enough you’ll find pieces of me.

I am Ellen, some say a happy, humorous, quick-witted woman who laughs, loves, talks and cries in equal measure. Others suggest “I am a bit bonkers, but we know all the best people are”. (Borrowed from Lewis Carroll).
I am stronger than I seem; happier than I have ever been. I am a complex character who loves life. I Bathe in love, laughter and words. Words that I read and write, words that I swallow whole.

Please pay me with comments and I will respond, you will make me happy. Who knows, you may even gain a pal ‘flutters lashes’ I am easily pleased.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter/X HERE. Or on Instagram HERE You can also follow my Pinterest Here. If you wish.

Reason for my absence, lack of continuity, on my blog is explained below.

On October 14th 2023 we lost our beautiful 4 year old grandson to cancer, a particulary viscious strain of the disease.

George’s story can be found in the link to a special named fund below. Please read it’s in my daughter’s own words.

Press Here to Read.

Six months has passed in a nanosecond. We, as a family have been rocked, our world finished, nothing will be the same again. We must honour his way, be, more George, resilient, adventurous and brave. Or in his words. ‘No, I am just, … George’. R.I.P. George John Radcliffe.