Category: Memoir
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Gasps of the past inform the present . . .
So I wasn’t sure I got much out of the writing workshop on Bank Holiday Monday — it felt rather more useful for beginning writers, and of course I fancy myself a bit with three years of writing group under my belt these days. But I was chatting about the day with our beloved neighbour,…
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Weekend joys
Throughout the afternoon, and into the later evening, we kept the water warm and inviting, while for excitement we roared along with the rest of the country as the Lionesses took the Euro Championship. The dinner thereafter was a wonderful flourish; we chatted about life’s new challenges with our beloved neighbours until we were absolutely…
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Sharing broodiness
I feel sorry for the hens when I rustle underneath them to feel for their next eggs. Not quite so sorry when they each peck my hand! But they’re not fierce — they just don’t want to be disturbed in their hormonal delirium. The Barnies are the best layers we’ve had; their eggs are large…
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Frankly, the joy of writing
So the new task for Writing Group this coming week is to write something about ‘walls, frontiers, margins.’ Could be poetry, fiction, or even creative non-fiction in the form of memoir. Pace John Irving, who wants us to believe that his creativity is so much more than reality, but I suspect that novels are a…
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An . . .ti . . . ci . . . pa. . . tion
Love ’em or loathe ’em, puzzles and puzzling have a particular niche in people’s minds. We usually try to have a large puzzle ready or even on the go for family Christmases. I’d guess we split fairly evenly between those who become fascinated by the search-and-see approach and those who are only faintly bemused by…
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Measuring up to the challenge
Our son came to me with a challenge: how about a time lapse sequence of seeds sprouting, Dad, in the shape of the title of our special video? As the seeds grow, they could emerge magically from the soft peat and behold, the letters might appear, revealed from their dark incubating place. So the challenge…
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Halfway point or . . .
I think this is a ‘glass half full or half empty?’ kind of musing, today. Last winter, when the bubbled family got together, our grandson and I went out on a trek through the snow with his LEGO mini-figs. I think his ambition was to create a LEGO type storyboard through a variety of scenes…
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A cheerful tale with a sad ending
A fascinating thing about farmers in these parts is the delight indulged by many of them, in pea fowl. In our own smallholding, up on the high fellside, we took care of a mini-flock for a while, the legacy of Earnest, or maybe it was Percy. But four pea fowl were about four too many,…
Roads to Joy 