Storytime

We had Miss Two for the weekend recently, and we took her adventuring. We went on a drive out to the country to visit the Alexandra and District Open Gardens. She does love roaming our garden. Just discovering that if you are walking on a hill you have to lean, but not too far...and that at times you will fall over. She loves going out and picking an orange from the tree...she sometimes eats it...always loves to carry it around with her. We visited three gardens, each one offering up something different. Something to think about in our own plot. Whether it was the plant combinations...the colours... Or the fact that Miss Two enjoyed them all. She had a great time. Running on the lawns when there were lawns... stopping at times to look at the flowers and say 'aw, cute.' I found so many inspirations for my garden. Yep so want one of these... and I liked how regimented these hedges were then that burst of frothy flowers at the bottom. I li...

It doesn't take much does it? A word or phrase, perhaps a comment...sometimes even a look and it is as though it is now a truth eternally etched into our hearts. I remember years ago, year seven (so yes YEARS ago)...we did that dreaded Maths example. You remember, where they took our height...and our WEIGHT...to create a graph. We also looked at other factors but frankly I don't remember them. What has stayed with me for all these years was that in that group I was short and fat. Yep...that's what has been engraved on my skin. And when I look back on those teenage years (OMG)...let's get a shy girl and then make her believe she is short and fat and doesn't live up to any standards and see what happens. It really doesn't take much for us to believe in negative thoughts. This month has been a bust writing wise. Frankly this year has been a hell of a year in so many ways...some good...but a hell of a lot of bad and uncooperative and just plain annoying. ...

Last week I ventured to another library and ran a memoir writing workshop for Seniors Week. It was a lot of fun (and boy was I nervous!) and I'm glad to say not only was there a good turn out but I received some very good comments. In fact one lovely bunch of women would love me to come back each week and help them step by step through their writing. I did make them write and the majority were more than eager to share their work. It was so interesting to discover that while most people know exactly  what they 'want' to write about, when it is said out loud it does sometime lose it's glamour. It becomes a bit humdrum. What we discovered during these two hours was the glory of the aside. People would say 'I''m writing a story about this time when this happened and this happened and I remember vividly this happening". All nice, all great social commentary...but then they would say something like 'and that's when she got the gun out and trie...

I am in no way an art person...craft yes. I will tinker and play around with most craft activities however when it come to art I have no idea. I am in total awe of those that take upon artistic endeavours. I am drawn to colours...put a mash of colours that fight each other and I think, wow, want that for my garden. On the weekend I managed to get myself out and about and went to the Red Tree Gallery  for the opening of an exhibition by Yvette Stubbs . I have known Yvette for years (we won't go into how many)..and have admired her work as a poet, writer and artist. I found the exhibition, a solo exhibition, amazing. I loved the colours. The fluidity... the life and movement. I stood in front of each piece of art just wondering how you do this. How do you create a piece of art? Where do you begin? Where do you end?  How do you know which colours to use...and where?  It is something I would love to do, however have no skills in t...

Five weeks in and while my hand is healing amazingly well, there are still so many limits to what I can do. Lifting is still a big no no (and of course, now with no bandage to remind me, I tend to reach for everything with that hand). I also find a lot of things still uncomfortable. Clapping at Tinies Time...opening jars (how frustrating is that!)....and even using a mouse and keyboard for any amount of time. So I have been doing very little writing (except some prep work for a few writing based programs at work). To keep me active to a certain extent in the writing world, I have been doing some character sketches. I notice folks anyway... I find them so intriguing...but now I'm noting down how they look. Not a -'she's five foot two, dark brown hair, brown eyes'. This is a basic police sketch. I'm trying to give a feeling about them. What they are doing. How they are acting. Any nervous habits...anything out of the ordinary? If normal...why are th...