I often claim I’m not afraid of anything that Nature made.
I let the little bees buzz by; I gently brush away each fly.
I watch the wasp approach the jam and quickly cover, while I can.
The dustpan’s great for the wood louse – I rather like the tiny mouse!
But pity me, and do not laugh – I’m scared of spiders in the bath!
Not feeling poetic today but I did take a picture of the paella at the Worthing Food Fair today. We had some for lunch, with some local cider and wandered round the stalls selling food from all over the world. We brought back some baklava and had it with a cup of tea on our return. ( honey and almond)
I’m giving two talks next week and without a printer I’ll have to work from notes. I don’t often stick to the script anyway. This time it isn’t WI but a Parkinson’s group and a Church Fellowship Group. I think my stories should appeal to them and as the first talk is in Chichester I’m going to treat myself to a day out.
As I am not writing a novel at present I thought I might try some competitions. The one in the Writing Magazine looked promising. We needed to write an autumn poem that didn’t seem hackneyed ( No mists and mellow fruitfulness) When I was a schoolteacher we used to ask the children to think of lots of words that reminded them of autumn and then turn them into a poem. Naturally we had loads of red and golden leaves, along with bonfire night and getting ready for Christmas.
I looked at the winning poems in other competitions and found that free verse, without rhyme, usually won first prize. OK – I thought, I’ll try that. So I did and the fourth line rhymed with the second line in spite of my efforts. What should I do – write in sentences and then split them into phrases or give up and write the kind of verse I usually compose? I forced myself not to use rhyming couplets.
Serious poets would only sneer.
If I don’t enter the competition
I’ll post it somewhere here.
I am trying to take my phone with a camera everywhere like the youngsters do and this week I’m feeling cheerful as the kitchen has a new lighting system and someone is coming to fix my printer.
This picture ( if it comes out) is of our favourite traditional jazz band, the Featherstone Jazzband who play at a number of venues in Sussex including Lancing Leisure Centre.
Our writing group. the Sea Scribes, will be booking the leisure centre for a charity gig in November with music from local folk singers and stories and poems from the group. We will also have books for sale.
As soon as this is confirmed it will be on my website, http://www.juliecround.co.uk where you can find a gallery of everything I have been involved in for the last few years.
Today I wore something quite new
A pair of socks made from bamboo
They weren’t very thick
Although made of stick-
They were soft, and are good for you, too!
So if you want feet that are great
And misshapen toe nails you hate
Then these socks of bamboo
Would be perfect for you
With tea tree oil, no time to wait!
Anyone else try to put the clothes in their wardrobe into matching colour sequence? I try to hang everything with a similar colour, all the blues together, all the reds together and the prints with their predominant colour but it all goes haywire when I have worn something and take it off. I invariably hang it on the end of the row. After a few days the whole sequence is ruined and I give up, especially when I have to put two items on one hanger and they aren’t the same colour! I took a picture as an example. Perhaps I’ll take another next week!
Do you use your local library? I am lucky, as not only do we have a library in the town but we also have a mobile library that parks quite near the house. This is the one I use and get four books each time, which usually last me a fortnight.
The main library also serves as a computer centre and has talks and group meetings. This is where I took the four copies of my most recent book to add to the County’s collection. I donate four each time and enjoy picking up a copy if I see it and checking how often it has been taken out.
I also send a copy to any library in an area I have written about in a story, just to spread them around the country. They have gone to Wales, Oxfordshire and Kent as well as the West Midlands.
The mobile library is very efficient and if I order a book it usually arrives within a week, unless there are no copies in the country, which sometimes happens when the book is American. I do buy the odd book if I think it is one I will want to keep but they often end up in a charity shop or as a raffle prize as we have little room for books in our bungalow.I certainly couldn’t have a personal library as some folk have – I haven’t even got an office. I write on a laptop on the dining table. It stops me spending too much time on the computer as I have to pack up for meals!
