I've always a story in my head but rarely have written them down, so over the years during idle moments, I've made a start or when I'm on holiday bring a pen and paper and observe life, reflect on my past, lessons learnt and write them down.

My stories are like the ones you would get in the The Friendship Book (if you can still get them).

The Friendship Books, in particular, played quite a part of my early life and has influenced how I write... every Sunday, we had to visit our Aunt Norah in Tandragee, where we'd have corned beef sandwiches for tea with no TV to entertain us kids. But for me the highlight was having so many Friendship Book annuals to go through. I loved them and kept me reading for hours. I can still see that heavy oak, glass-fronted bookcase filled with them in that old, dark terrace cottage with its spooky rooms.

The stories are not too intense, just something to sometimes amuse, sometimes consider, sometimes challenge and move on. Some of them I've recorded so you can hear my tone of voice. Never realised how difficult it is to record without pausing and saying 'Em' so much! LOL!

I've tried to compile some structure with adding consistent keywords that can be selected from the blog's tag cloud. Those keywords relate to some type of story, for example, about my childhood.

I hope you enjoy them.

Why ronjea?

It's made up of two parts, 'ron' and 'jea', each taken from different names I have had.

The 'ron' is from my maiden name... frankly I've never liked it, mostly from the nicknames I got at school! I'm only using it in this way to acknowledge it did exist for the first nineteen years of my life.

'jea' is from my middle name, Jeanette. Never used. It acknowledges both my father and mother's Christian names, John and Jean... to clarify:

• its French meaning is: Little Jean
• the Scottish version is from the Old French Jehane, which is a feminine form of John 
• according to the Scots, French and Americans, it's suppose to mean 'God is gracious'

From the web

I've learnt a couple of things about the name Jeanette when researching it. People who have that name are supposed to:

• have a deep inner need for quiet, and a desire to understand and analyse the world they live in, and to learn the deeper truths... well, that would be true
• be competent, practical, and often obtain great power and wealth... possibly I'm more competent and practical, than have obtained great power and wealth
• tend to be successful in business and commercial affairs, and are able to achieve great material dreams... depends from whose perspective you're looking at
• often focus so strongly on business and achievement, they may neglect their private lives and relationships... I know who would be a good judge of that one!

Note to self... don't believe everything on the web. Be faithful to who I am no matter what 'they' say (whoever 'they' are).