Reasons to be cheerful 1, 2...

Not the most jolly of weekends having to put the final touches to the paper work. Why am I allowing this thing (Internal Inspection) to drive the light out of my life? No smart arse positive thinking ripostes please...like 'Because you're letting it.' When this is over I plan to walk part of the Fylde Coast, feel the cold breeze on my face, smell the brine, watch the waders fly across the estuary and blow half a tun of bureaucratic bollocks out to sea.

Meanwhile, my little bundle of joy is 24 on Monday. As you can see, he likes wrestling heroes. This one, Mick Fowley is also a respected fiction writer.

 

The birds of the air and a spot of real life

Visits from siskins and bullfinches put a smile on my face and my mind off the state of the nation. Went back to work on Thursday but it was quiet and empty, maybe not a bad way to get back into the routine, which kicks in properly tomorrow.

During last week I visited 'Ship of Fools', where I learned that the main boards editor Erin Etheredge had suddenly passed away. The response has been quite overwhelming. My nephew was rushed into hospital with what turned out to be a blocked bowel and I've been helping keep him occupied with a Harry Potter text quiz. Today I caught up with a ex-colleague's blog in which she gives a candid and unindulgent account of living with lung cancer. Earlier in the week we had a book group meeting, where I had a chance to have a good chat with the organiser who also has cancer and is coping well. All of which puts stuff into perspective somewhat.

Another Year

In the bedroom, my wine purple velvet dress hangs from the wardrobe door, draped with a sparkly scarf that glitters in the lamplight and my long black cardigan, scattered with hundreds of tiny silver threads is drying across the radiator. A little make up and I'll soon be ready to help make the party shine, like they did in the war and the depression that preceded it.

What would I like in 2011? The ability to stay calm and keep a sense of perspective; a good sense of humour and enough money to keep the wolf from the door and maybe, in some small way, to make a positive difference. I'd like my friends and family to keep well and for reading ages to improve across the world and for everyone to have access to clean water. Oh yeah and for this blinkin' government to abandon their plan to sell off the forests. It's not that much to ask is it?

Research

I am tired now. I've just spent hours researching and preparing background information for the poetry unit options to post on Moodle. I wrote a handout on romantic love (one option) and spent quite a while putting up links on some of the references in Carol Ann Duffy's The Kray Sisters for another option. And what a brilliant poem it is.

You don't have to be gay or even a feminist - though I was and possibly still am the latter - to appreciate it. It's as feisty as feck. Mixing references to suffragettes and Violet Trefusis and Vita (Orlando) Sackville West with Lulu, Barbara Windsor, Bridgette Bardot, Shirley Bassey and Germaine Greer takes some leaps of the imagination but with its final quote from These boots are Made for Walking, its evocative presentation of London and its in ya face wit it all makes perfect sense.

November

November started wet and got sunnier and colder and featured perfect, endless winter skies. Skies to die for: big, fat, massive, huge, magnificent skies in pale winter blue splashed with orange, red, pink and turquoise and puddles of gold for the sky gods to bathe in. Skies to keep one sane on the way to work in the morning. Hyperbolistic.

October

I'd forgotten just how lovely October can be with its gentle mists and soft yet cool, clear sunshine. When I walk down Heartbreak Hill in the mornings, robins and finches skitter in the hawthorn and, despite the slight troubles I have encountered lately, this fills me with gladness.

The leaves are turning and orange and brown predominate(I read somewhere that the glorious crimsons and purples of last year will not feature heavily this Autumn). Later berries and flowers still brighten up gardens but the petals on the Japanese Anenomies in our front garden are starting to fall. Winter is not far way but I do not dread it, despite the gradual reduction of light, which can bring on bouts of tired melancholy.

I have always been aware of the turning of the seasons throughout the years of my life, familiar markers on the journey and I am suddenly aware that today is a beautiful day to enjoy the gifts God has given me.

Back for Autumn

The Great tits and the Coal tits are back. Last seen in the Elder in early May, they disappeared for four months but now they are back, snacking on sunflower hearts and black sunflower seeds. The feeders are twirling.