Virginia Ironside

Wherever Jenny goes, her worries follow her - in a big blue bag. They are with her all the time - at school, at home, when she is watching TV and even in the bathroom! Jenny decides they have to go, but who will help her get rid of them?A funny and reassuring look at dealing with worries and anxiety, to be used as a spring board into important conversations with your child.

Marie is turning 69 this year, but there are no signs of her slowing down - she has a new male lodger (very into conspiracy theories), an intractable iPhone to wrestle with, and a trip to India to plan!As usual the year brings plenty of challenges as well as opportunities. Marie is burgled, which sends the street into uproar. Ex-husand David is still around and getting rather too close for comfort. Marie's cat Pouncer is starting to look rather peaky (her conspiracy-theorist lodger is convinced someone is poisoning him), and probably worst of all, it seems her grandson Gene is getting too old to want to hang out with his granny any more. Maybe learning to graffiti and speak street slang will help win him back?Full of Virginia Ironside's inimitable wit and featuring plenty of popular characters from this series, this is a hilarious and touching look at getting older from one of Britain's best observers of relationships.

A reassuring picture book encouraging children to open up about their fears and anxieties to help manage their feelings. The perfect book to soothe worries during stressful times. Wherever Jenny goes, her worries follow her - in a big blue bag. They are with her all the time - at school, at home, when she is watching TV and even in the bathroom! Jenny decides they have to go, but who will help her get rid of them?A funny and reassuring look at dealing with worries and anxiety, to be used as a spring board into important conversations with your child.

Getting old?Get over it!For too long those in short skirts have been telling us oldies we don't matter: 'you're out of touch! Get out of the way, grandma! The next generation is coming through.'Well, enough is enough.Because getting old is great. For a start you no longer need to care what anyone thinks. You can let - if you've got any left - your hair down. No one will tell you off for grumbling. And no one minds if you forget (or pretend to forget) who you're talking to. Being rude has never been so easy - or liberating. And that's not all you can get away with now that you've seen it all (and done most of it) . . .Let Virginia Ironside take you through the top twenty reasons why getting old is good for you - and let the young and dumb keep their callow youth!

Too young to get whisked away by a Stannah Stairlift, or to enjoy the luxury of a walk-in bath (but not so much that she doesn't enjoy comfortable shoes), Marie is all the same getting on in years - and she's thrilled about it. She's a bit preoccupied about whether to give up sex - Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! - but there are compensations, like falling in love with her baby grandson, and maybe falling in love with someone else too? Curmudgeonly, acute, touching and funny, this diary is what happens when grumply old women meet Bridget Jones.

Another year, another January, and Marie Sharp has written a new diary, dishing the dirt on how the cool grannies live today. And her drug cravings aren't the half of it. There's the handsome stranger who arrives as her new lodger. Is he all that he seems? There's the new project - teaching art at a school, now that her grandchild-minding days are numbered. Not to mention the mad dog and the crazy new neighbour. And then there's the lump, a frightening symptom of... what? Marie is back, courting laughter and disaster in equal measure. In her own inimitable style, she's getting older... and loving every minute of it.

Marie may be 'getting on a bit' but it's certainly not getting her down. Her family around her and a man who loves her means that life is good - but nothing stays the same for long. Marie's golden years are filled with as much drama - love, laughter and tears - as ever. Which just goes to show that getting on a bit does not mean giving up - or even growing up.

No-nonsense, wryly self-deprecating, and totally persuasive, You're Old, I'm Old...Get Used to It unabashedly exalts the virtues of aging. Virginia Ironside wants you to know that getting old is a good thing-and not in that dreadful "sixty is the new forty" way. At sixty-five, she has no interest in pretending to be young and neither should you. Virginia celebrates all the "issues" that she and her fellow oldies embrace, including: - Talking about ailments (and the fabulous meds that come with them)- Grandchildren (the reward you get for not killing your children)- Wisdom (random disorganized knowledge you get to put a fancy label on because you're old)

Read Virginia Ironside's posts on the Penguin Blog. A screamingly funny and poignant story about embracing life beyond middle age Marie Sharp is heading toward sixty and is just fine with it. She's already had plenty of excitement in her life: sex and drugs in the freewheeling sixties, career and children, marriage and divorce. Now she's ready to settle into a quiet, blissfully boring routine. No Italian classes or gym memberships or bicycle trips across Europe, thank you very much Marie just wants to put her feet up and "start doing old things." She's even sworn off men But as it turns out, life still has some surprises in store, the biggest of which is a new grandson on the way. What's more, Archie, her old childhood crush, suddenly reenters her life, and her closest friend falls seriously ill. Armed with a biting sense of humor, Marie wrestles with a life that refuses to follow her plans--and may still offer more possibilities than she realizes.

The death of a loved one is the most traumatic experience any of us face. No two people cope with it the same way: some cry while others remain dry-eyed; some discover growth through pain, others find arid wastes; some feel angry, others feel numb. Virginia Ironside deals with this complicated and sensitive issue with great frankness and insight, drawing on other's people's accounts as well as her own experiences.