New Year Resolve
I promise not to interrupt
Or give the impression of being abrupt.
Professionally I'll write the stuff
Of which tutors cannot get enough.
Resolved to scoop a poetry prize
My New Year fiction'll tantalise,
Be made into a super film
And earn me lots of money. Hmm!
I like my flat. It is exactly the right size, warm in winter, facing south, a rural view but after the Queen's speech and looking at Sandringham online I did wonder if my decor was a bit understated? Know what I mean? Wondered what I could do to improve things. That was Christmas Day though. Fortunately the feeling's worn off and home seems delighful as ever.
Written the first draught of A215 EMA.
You've gone off ice - cream. You're thinking of pud.
Won't go outside without wearing a hood.
Sight of Summer clothes makes you feel cold.
Socks and shoes you're wearing are old.
Your respectable stuff is soaking wet.
Winter discomforts are terrible - yet
While worsening weather is creeping by
Corn in the field is inches high!
A Christmas Cheer
For all who chance to read my blog
Angel, reindeer, man and mog.
23rd December 2012
Something small brown and furry was sitting on the headland as I walked this morning.
Rhubarb rhubarb. Just transplanted mine as it was becoming overgrown by a shrub. Four broad bean plants are showing.
Went to a carol service last night. The singing was accompanied by a brass band.
Who was Good King Wenceslas and what is the Feast of Stephen? Why don't I do interesting things like watching flocks nowadays?
The stable, in the nativity story was always a problem to visualise. There was, is, the detached, rickety Italian Renaissance version with fluttering ribbons and glossy oxen. Then there's the stable with carved classical columns and flower arrangements but the stable which most accords with biblical description was found in Bages, Roussillon South of France, 2002 a few days before Christmas.
The old village houses are terraced and several storeys high. One of them was open on the ground floor. Inside there was a wooden manger, iron tethering rings and a door to the house. A builder's van was parked outside and a garage/utility room conversion job was imminent!
Question;
With which cheese do you entice your bear from the mountain?
Answer; Camembert!
Nice electrician came to mend the lights.
Happy Christmas everyone!
'Butt Love is a durable fyre
In the mynde burnynge:
Never sycke never ould never dead
from itt selfe never turnynge.'
Publisher; Penguin 1956
Editor; John Hayward
Title; Penguin Book of English Verse
p. 38, Sir Walter Raylegh [A Lover's Complaint]
Bedroom centre light went fizz, pop, nothing, last night. Replaced light bulb. Still no light but the table lamps were okay? None of the centre lights in my flat are working??
Bought candles. Christmassy!
Planning to pitch an article to Carriage Driving Magazine. My first experience of driving in a two seater, metal exercise cart was so delightful that I thought others might like to share the story.
Buddy the pony, in the shafts, suddenly stopped en route when he saw a stranger taking pics of the Suffolk landscape. He would not budge despite repeated orders to walk on and a shake of the whip. Eventually I climbed down and lead him along the lane.
What was so quaint about it was that the meeting was entirely Buddy's idea and not that of the ladies in the cart!
Enjoying A215 online tutorial. First we were asked to create a fictional character and post online. Then we had to choose a character of someone else's invention and create a scene in which the two characters met.
The character I created was a young, monumental and aristocratic Irish farmer and the character he meets is working - class, social - climber, Tina Williams the fashion conscious townee. There is great potential for an amusing clash between two opposites.
Thursday, 06 December 2012
'tis dark n' my lark is descending.
Just found this;
Publisher; Norton and Co. 1982
Trans; Hutton J.
Title; Aristotle's Poetics
25. p. 74 - 75
' ... the poet is an imitator, ... he must be imitating one of three objects; things as they once were or now are; or things as people ... suppose they ... ought to be.'
Hey! Is the reclining notebook an entry for the Turner Prize?
Plenty of poetic inspiration for TMA 03 with all this snow!
Are tutor's spelling errors penalised? I think I should score a point for every typo in my assessments.
Fog Frost
Flowers lost
Field's bare
Don't care.
All's good
In Xmas pud.
4th December 2012
I was editing my TMA02 when there was a knock on the door. My neighbour handed me a card and I clinging to the doorpost said.
'Can't invite you in as I have ... ' and she said
'I know I can hear it. I'll come after Christmas for a game of Scrabble.' Whereupon I coughed fit to bust and she disappeared.
Have been drafting a commentary on TMA02 this afternoon but I had no good feelings about it because my tutor let me down again. I sent my first TMA Y180 online. The tutor acknowledged receipt marked and returned it with five Achieveds, one Not Achieved and two Just Achieveds. Annoyed with self for forgetting to send summary!
Sent TMA02 online. Received email from university but nothing from tutor. Emailed tutor. No reply. Phoned university was advised to contact tutor. Contacted tutor by phone. She said she had collected my TMA and would return it within a five days. Nothing happened. I phoned again and she said. 'I should have let you know. I've been busy and haven't had time to mark it.' (Only Achieved twice in EMA with six Just Achieveds.)
Confidence slid through soles of slippers. At the online tutorial A215 I was second to post a reply to question one. As the day wore on and the next dawned I was getting concerned particularly as she had responded to the first student. Sent query. I am waiting for the others to join in replied tutor. Crushed! Many of them responded to my poem though and I was very pleased with that.
I am feeling much better now I have discharged this gripe.
Yiptahootee!
Have been editing TMA02 a story of 2,200 words today. Read MS to Clare and discovered many errors mostly to do with fluency.
26th November 2012
Summer Morning
Sunday Summer morning early
And the sky's Iberian blue.
Shadow soaks the sycamore leaves
In winey hue.
By the concrete path a peony
Flares all seven headed.
The leaves are green and leonine
The carmine petals shredded.
In the open window
Hangs the August heat.
Pigeon paternoster,
Unheard in a weekday street.
Above the purple roof n' ridge row
'gainst the racing Swift
Drifts a cloud of indigo;
Remnant of a night so slow to lift.
Point of View in literature is fascinating. I am, you are, he/she/it is, was, might be ... with all that to choose from you can't make a pig's ear of english can you?
I can. I get them mixed up and then I have the equivalent of cold black coffee instead of big hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows.
Our lawn is white this morning but the wallflowers don't seem to mind. Pelargonium cuttings are draining prior to placement in their day time position on the sitting - room window sill.
Made some christmas cards yesterday and bought a takeaway curry. A foreign woman, wandering around the hamlet asking directions, wanted a certain commodity supplier that she had heard operated in the area. She followed me into the cafe. While I was awaiting the curry I suggested she consulted the internet. Fortunately the waitress had brought her laptop to work and the foreigner was redirected.
Scored 49 for my TMA01.
Dark at four forty five. I am planning an Austrian holiday.
Went for a walk at dawn yesterday. The aim was to write notes en route and so gather ideas for a poem for A215 TMA03.
I keep my bookworm in a cage.
To stop him getting in a rage,
I feed him often through the bars
With books by Tacitus and Mars.
Patricia Lesley circa 2005
Raining. Stayed in bed most of the morning doing A215 exercises and drinking coffee.
Made a lasagne and started another version of my story for the Choc Lit Competition. David phoned to tell me that he is not coming to the writers' group next week. No sign of my broad bean shoots yet but there are - paw marks on the soil surrounding the planted area!
Don't miss the next enthralling episode.
Bought some sprouts from the Sunnyside Farm Shop. Countryside sodden. The Water Board have installed a temporary pipe beside the lane to Rickinghall, as the road is awash. Saw a skull in the ditch. Guess it was that of a fox or a badger.
Went to the village firework display, with Clare and her boyf.
Hordes of dark lumps, large and small, wandering around the green, scoffing hog in a bun and swigging ale. A fire burned in a corner. Reminded me of a Breughel painting. We reckoned someone lost the matches because the fireworks did not begin until twenty minutes after the advertised time.
When the first rocket was launched a great cheer resounded. I walked home after the sixth. Didn't there used to be catherine wheels, Vesuvius's smoke, sparklers and Prince of Wales Feathers?
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