Goodbye Old Faithfull

The time has come to say goodbye to my eighteen year old Peugeot Cabriolet. The last journey we took in it to Torquay it rained and I got a wet lap as the drips leaked through the rag-top. The cost of an MOT is more than the car is worth. No more open top cars. People slash them and the wind noise is deafening on a motorway. Can't see out of the rear window unless the top's down. Still life in her for a new enthusiastic owner. Lots of new parts in her. I think I'll cry when I say goodbye to her.

Going to look at a used Mini later today. I've had two mini cars in the past so looking forward to driving the new models. This one has a panoramic electric sunroof so bit of a halfway between open top driving and closed in. Not quite ready to be too sensible yet with a car. Still need a bit of sexy.

Meet the Author

This is fun. This is a website with video and audio clips of published authors talking about their latest book. Meet The Author has around eight hundred clips so far.

I made the mistake of going to Jodie Marsh's video clip and her teeth were so dazzling I had to put my sunglasses on! There are 'proper' authors there too.

Valentine Surprise

Since Monday morning Morty was going on about Valentine's Day and my 'surprise' and what time does the postman come. I told him that if it meant we were going away I needed to know. He knows that! Nails need doing, choosing a frock, things sorted.

So why did he wait until 10 a.m. on Valentine's morning to give me a lovely card and to tell me to get packed as we were going away to stay overnight but he wasn't going to tell me where!

The Tesco delivery was booked for the 10-12 time slot! My hair needed a shampoo. He'd booked it all up four days ago so he had loads of time to get excited - I didn't have any time to get excited as I was too busy trying to get a case packed, have a bath, organise myself, unpack one week's grocery shopping and insist he told me where we were going.

Do I need walking boots? Is it a country pub or a bit smarter? It was the Grand at Torquay which is a delicious hotel to stay in. Romantic, wonderful food, and plenty of bracing seafront to walk along.

It was a great surprise and a lovely treat and I bet he forgets the fuss I made about such short notice and does it again one day - I hope!

Sunshine on The Nile

The above photo of the River Nile at Aswan, taken in February 2005, has nothing to do with my subject, but it's so cold and miserable I thought it might may everyone feel better.

Our tutor has created subconferences and activities to help us get started as a group. Looks good too. As expected I was the first to post because I know how shy I was the first time I entered a course FirstClass conference. Well, I'm not shy any more so hope by posting others will be encouraged to join in. I even posted a Haiku and that took some bottle!

I've even joined in a story in the Scribs conference. It is about cosmetic surgery and the menopause so - a couple of topics I'm more than happy with. I wouldn't have dared to do something like that a couple of months ago. I used to read the community stories and think everyone was so clever so in this short time I've gained confidence in my new study subject.

I love A215 so far. The Cafe is buzzing and some lovely warm people in there. It doesn't feel like study at all - should I be worried?

Going to a live gig tonight. It's an annual tribute to a local musician who got drunk, fell into an alley on the way home from the pub and froze to death - exactly fifteen years ago this week. The band he played in still exists and everyone who has played in the band, about forty of them, turns up for this, wherever they are in the world. Sometimes there's three saxophonists, a couple of keyboards and as many as twenty musicians on the stage at the same time making a wall of sound. It's Blues, Trad and Modern Jazz, Rock with a couple of good earthy blues singers. We go every year, sometimes meeting people we haven't seen since the last event.

The tickets are a tenner and all the proceeds, every penny as everyone does it for free, go to a local fund to buy musical instruments for school children.

Good weekend to all.

Birkenau

The Railway Track

Looking at photos to stimulate my poetry skills (cough) seems to be working for me. This is a photo of the railway track at Birkenau in Poland where Jews, gypsies and other victims of Hitler's Final Solution arrived to be gassed, cremated and starved. Looking at these images of the utter hell they all endured make me feel as sad as I did on the day I took the photos.

Although I prefer typing straight into my word processor for my clusters and freewriting, I'm taking notice of the course book and doing poetry using paper and pen. Have to really as so much to alter and also keeping each draft for reference as there could be some good bits in there.

I wish I could attempt this without the need to rhyme lines because I see how that can look contrived, yet I can't do that - yet - hopefully with practice I shall be able to.