May already! What the f%*# ! It is a somewhat grey day at The Gallop. Earlier on when I went out coatless in glorious sunshine, I thought yep - this is what summer is all about! Now, as I sit behind my latticed windows, listening to the constant growl of council grass strimmers tidying the verges, the blue sky is disappearing behind candyfloss clouds and the sun has said That's it, time for a nap - and gone to bed. Hopefully it will wake up in time for this weekend which we are lucky enough to be sharing with five of our seven grandchildren in Southend. Adventure Island - watch out!
Been pretty busy since my last post. We have been househunting on the net and have set aside a weekend in September to go and view as many places as we can. I have spoken to my manager about transferring my services to another residential home in our new area. It is less than a month (and only two sessions) until I leave the Young Writers in the safe hands of Sara, the Chatterbooks facilitator and, in preparation for re-focusing on my own writing, I have taken out a subscription with MsLexia, the magazine for women writers. I was a subscriber for a few years back in the early noughties and was very excited last week when my first issue popped through the letterbox. I haven't actually had time to read it yet, but I have flicked through it. It is more like a paperback book than a magazine now and I am not sure where to start with it but I am sure I will get to grips with it in time.
Have been crazily putting together a poetry booklet for the Young Writers. I knew I would not have time to compile a new anthology for them - Word Magic and Word Magic 2 were both over a year in the planning, editing, laying-out, printing etc etc etc and this time, I only had six months between when I first proposed a poetry leaflet to the Young Writers and my final session in June with them. Talk about yet another learning curve. I found a programme on my laptop that allows you to put a booklet together and this morning I finished laying it all out and printed off the book covers. But when I began to print off the actual poems, the printer threw a tantrum, blew a raspberry at me and thoughtlessly chewed up the sheet going through it. So I have given it the rest of the day off and will try to get it finished over the next week or so.
I was recently a judge for the BBC 500 Words competition. I did it last year and was offered the opportunity to do it again this year so I thought why not? It is great reading the stories sent in by 6 to 11 year olds all over the UK and it never ceases to astonish me how much talent is out there. I have decided this is the best age group to nurture where writing is concerned. Their imaginations know no bounds and their honesty is something we can all learn from. Maybe once they hit High School their heads are, quite rightly, trained to go into exam mode so - in the most part - there is not much time left for Creative Writing as a hobby. I think, once we have moved and settled, I will start an on-line Creative Writing group just for children. I will have to learn how to build a web-site first but hey - never say never!
I think that is about it this time. Steve has gone off exploring and left me at home to write - and I still have Linked-In to catch up on so better fly. Speak soon I hope. Keep smiling!
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