Friday 31 December 2010

Ring Out The Old - Ring In The New!!

Despite the cross daubed on my sister's door - her family's version of the plague is much worse than ours - we dropped by this morning to collect our tiny nephew and niece and take them for a walk so that their mum could put her feet up for a little while.
Both the snuffly tots snoozed in their buggy as we pushed through Chorlton Meadows. It's the first time we've been there since Benji died in September, so it was a nostalgic trundle as we remembered all the wonderful walks we've done across there thanks to him. No walks there since September, I've just not been able to face it without him. 
I knew I wanted to go there today and reconnect with the life force in that beautiful place. No meadows walks - and also not a single swim since Salford. My mermaid tail has started to curl a little and I've put on one stone in weight! But maybe now I'm starting to come out of mourning.
As we pushed through all the familiar places I reflected how I've missed these walks as part of my poetry process. I've written a couple since Benji died, but now I realise how important to my writing the daily communing with Nature is.

And then this evening.....
My sister invited us over for a little New Year's Eve cup of cheer and I wanted to buy her a bunch of flowers so we popped to our local Morrisons.
As we stood in the checkout queue..... suddenly I saw a face I recognised.....
Would you Adam and Eve it!! - Martine from Silencing The Bell!!
She moved up to these parts in November with her family - I knew her from her picture on her blog - let's face it, she stood no chance of recognising me! - so I scooted over and introduced myself ! 
What a serendipitous end to the old year, auspicious start to the new!!

Happy New Year To You - To Us - One And All  !!!

Wednesday 29 December 2010

I Do Believe In Fairies, I Do, I Do

Flu has hit this family, and my sister's, and we're all at different stages along the course of this horrible pestilence. So there's nothing for it but to sleep and do very little as Nature takes its uncomfortable course.....
There wasn't a dry eye in the house as we watched Peter Pan on ITV 2 - what a brilliant version - followed by the dvd of Up. Wonderful! What gluttons for punishment we are.





Saturday 25 December 2010

Wolcum Yule!



I hope to be blogging regularly again soon, but in the meantime - 
Season's Greetings!

Thursday 2 December 2010

Bless Me Father.....


One of the features of blogging anonymously is that you can be whoever you want to be.....
A casual observer of this blog might have noticed a lack of activity here of late, seen mention in recent posts of nanowrimo and deduce that I am now sitting back recovering with a smile on my face and a 50,000 word first draft under my belt. Oh, I could flesh out that image and no-one would be any the wiser.....however.....
you can take the girl out of the confessional box but you can't ...etc etc.
I got off to an enthusiastic start with my novel-writing month and it was great to reconnect with my story. Then I turned my attention to my weekly homework from my poetry school class with Shamshad Khan and quickly realised that I had a Harry Hill type fight on my hands - poems versus the novel - if you get my drift. It didn't make sense to have signed up for Shamshad's class and then not have a poem to work on each week. I decided to come back to the novel between classes - which gives me five weeks when this course finishes and before I start my next one in the middle of January.

So what have I been up to? Well, my decision paid off and I've written several poems, one or two of which I'm very pleased with. I've also assembled a small collection for the Poetry Business pamphlet competition. That's now in the lap of the gods, well, Simon Armitage actually, so we'll see what happens. 
Most exciting of all.....drum roll.....I've been asked to take part in a poetry reading in Liverpool next Wednesday! First gig! A poet I met a couple of years ago at a Poetry School class is setting up a new event and asked me to contribute a 15-minute spot. This weekend I'll be selecting a play list and weighing up my wardrobe.....
All in all, a firework-filled November!

(Now I must look at some of those Harry Hill fights I drew attention to earlier...)