Enjoying the Garden

I don't know about you, but although I'm loving the sunshine, the heat makes it hard for me to concentrate on any of my projects.

The best thing? To just sit in the hammock that 'im outdoors has hung for me, and read.

But the Catalpa Bignonioides "Aurea", or Golden Indian Bean Tree seems to be loving the sunshine. I love its gold coloured leaves against a brilliant blue sky.

Curtain Bird

With no assignments to write, I’ve had to keep myself busy with other projects.
While perusing the internet and following random links between sites I found the lovely Spool. Based in Philadelphia they are sadly a little far away to visit, although I’d love to if the fabric on their website is anything to go on. But they do have a few free patterns, so I downloaded myself a blue bird and had a go. I’m not a great at sewing, (yes I know I made a blind, but some of the lines are very wonky!) so this was a good starting project.
The only fabric I have is off cuts from our bedroom curtains, which I think actually worked really well.
So having had success with the bird I shall now try a slightly harder project – a lunch bag. I just need some appropriate material first – I feel a shopping trip coming on.

A House on an Island

It’s the last week of semester and I am totally run off my feet with Level 3 project marks and getting ready for exam boards amongst other things. But today I made the effort to attend the writers groups – seeing as we only meet once a month.
Last months homework was to write about a house. The Chair had provided pictures of houses cut out of magazines and newspapers and we had our pick.
Having chosen a small cottage I actually managed to find some time to write about it, although I didn’t get a change to edit it before the meeting.

My rough draft:

We didn’t see the house that first night. The fog was too thick; all we could see was the path leading to the door and our feet. I’ve always thought of fog as going from the ground up, so maybe this was very low cloud.
Frank had spent most of the journey moaning about the weather, and I hoped it would get better, but I didn’t really mind. At least we were away from work and the City and not stuck in some hot sticky place full of chavs.
That first night was so welcoming. Dinner left warming in the oven, a big fireplace ready for us, the bed turned down, the water hot. No people.
But that first night that was just fine, we didn’t want to see anyone either.

I was up early the next day, eager to explore the island. Frank was still asleep and I didn’t expect him to be up before lunch, we were on holiday after all.
The fog has gone leaving behind a damp island surrounded by blue sea and blue sky. In the distance I could see the mountains of Scotland, but the mainland felt miles away. In the early morning light everything seemed beautiful.
The island was unbelievably small; at one point I could see the sea surrounding us on all sides. This I had been expecting, but the fact there were no other houses I hadn’t. I didn’t think that Frank would like that, but the cottage seemed to have everything we needed so I didn’t mind.
I took my time getting back, looking at everything and thinking about what to make for lunch.
Frank wasn’t there when I got back. He must have gone on a walk of his own, although the island is small enough that I probably would have seen him.
I didn’t worry, just started to prepare lunch. He’d be hungry when he got back.

It is starting to get dark now and Frank’s still not back. I don’t know what to do. I’ve walked round the island again but seen no sign of him. He won’t have gone swimming, he hates water. Where can he be? I want this to be some elaborate joke, but Frank’s not the type. He can’t have left without me, I’d have seen the boat and all his stuffs still here…

I was trying to see if I could change the mood of a piece of writing which I think worked. The group seemed to like it. The big question; What happened to Frank?

Homework for next month: either write a poem about somewhere you are going to visit in the next month or write a story designed for a commuters journey.

Surrey Artists Open Studios

This weekend kicks off the Surrey Artist Open Studios event. This is a two week period to visit artist in Surrey - to look at their work, buy their work and in some cases see demonstrations of how they work. Some are even running workshops.
They’ve got about 440 artists across Surrey participating and all will be open on Sunday 13th June.
How amazing is that? A chance to go round and have a nose in other people’s workshops, but also to see a huge amount of art in every media possible. Just looking through the brochure I picked up at work I’m quite jealous of the work space some of these people have. Of course if I put in a few hours and cleared up the study of all the rubbish I bought back from my parents I too would have a pretty good space to work in. A task for this afternoon I fear.

QI

It’s typical that with a nice long bank holiday weekend coming up and with lots to do, I end up with a head cold. But that kicked off on Saturday and Friday was the really important day.
It’s ‘im outdoors birthday this week and as a surprise I managed to get tickets for us to watch them film BBC2’s QI. This is a programme we watch a lot, to be honest one of the only programmes that I’ll bother to watch, so to see it live was amazing. Hosted by Stephen Fry and on this occasion featuring Alan Davies, Ross Noble, Jeremy Clarkson and David Mitchell.
But not only was it 3 hours of funny discussion, it was also their 100th episode, so we all got a special badge and got to sing the programme happy birthday – not strange at all.
Most importantly I managed to keep it a surprise until we got into the queue, quite an achievement as I’ve been planning this since Jan, and ‘im outdoors really enjoyed himself. Now to start planning for next year…

A363 – Done

Today is the deadline for getting the final assignment for A363 – Advanced Creative Writing to the OU.
As I posted it on Monday I’m kinda hoping it’s there by now. I would cry if they sent it back unopened because it didn’t get there in time.
My story in the end was 22 pages long, double spaced, and called ‘Blast from the past’. I don’t think it is a bad story, although ask me that again in a couple of years and I might think differently.
To be honest right now I am just enjoying the freedom of no homework to be done and no deadlines to be aiming for. Of course I’ll be keeping myself busy – I’ve a large list of things I want to do, for instance making stuff, improving my book binding skills and maybe a bit of swimming on a Sunday morning.

But now I need to decide if I want to join another OU course. I’m quite tempted by EA300 – Children’s Literature, which includes some of my favourite children’s books as set texts – Tom’s Midnight Garden, Northern Lights, and Swallows and Amazons, amongst others. Would reading them in this sense spoil them for me or enhance them? Do I really want to write assignments about them? Do I really want to spend another 9 months studying? (and its not going to be just 9 months is it? If I do this one then I’ll want to do another 2 to finish my degree)
So many questions. Luckily ‘im outdoors is being his normal supportive self, so I know that whatever I decide, he’ll be right there with me, and checking my assignments if I need him too.

Ad Free Site

You might have noticed over the last week that I’ve added a little red icon on the right saying ‘Art not Ads’.
By showing this icon I’m stating that I am opposed to the use of corporate advertising on blogs (and to be honest in general – surly if I need something I’ll be able to find out about it without it flashing up on every webpage I visit).

So you can be sure that if I talk about something on this blog, its because I love it or have an opinion about it, not because I’ve been given any money to advertise it there.

36 Arguments for the Existence of God

This is the book the nice people at Mslexia have just sent me.
In the grand scheme of things I’m a lucky person; I have a lovely partner; we have a lovely flat plus garden; I’ve got a job that pays me well, etc etc. But when it comes to competitions etc I’m not so lucky. Not, I should hasten to add, that I’m moaning. But when I do win something it’s very unexpected and a nice treat.

Mslexia have a competition every edition of their magazine for a book of some kind. Some times it’s a work of fiction like this one, sometimes a book of poems, but I always enter as I’m always interested in writing which is new to me. Imagine my surprise when I received an email to say I’d won! To be honest I’d completely forgotten that I’d entered.
I’m looking forward to reading it, but it’s on my bedside table reading pile for now.