writing fifty: adventures everyday and extraordinary
I’m sure I was a disappointingly unresponsive child at times, failing to appreciate carefully-orchestrated opportunities and prone to Dinosaur Rubber Syndrome. For me the formative gift shop experience was at Prinknash Abbey, on a family holiday in That Summer of ‘76. I bought a set of 5 collapsible, flower-decorated biros—unusual colours, and in their own dinky see-through case which closed with a satisfying click. (more…)
Please imagine the inviting smoothness of the unbroken spine, the crisp feel of as-yet-un-turned pages, and that lovely new-book smell as you read this….
Two new items are up on the what the afternoon knows bookshelves. There’s Poem for the Day (1), a great anthology of poems, which is ideal as a present, and/or for encouraging you to read poetry. And there’s a remarkable bit of non-fiction, Jane Shilling’s The Stranger in the Mirror: a memoir of middle age. This is an extraordinary book, honest, moving, and beautifully written.
Would love to hear from anyone else who’s read, or is reading these.
Wait. Before I go on: those of you who are following these pages: thank you. I’m not yet ready to use “message” as a verb, but I do appreciate being, um, contacted, whether privately or publicly. And it’s wonderful to know things I say are resonating. Is it bad that I want to use the slogan for the Syrius Cybernetics Corporation? Share and enjoy, companions, share and enjoy.
Anyway. Some of you who are following these pages may know that, in the hope of spreading the word about what the afternoon knows, I’m recently embarked (more…)
Some are frustrating and tiresome; some irritate and enervate; others simply feel as if they’ll never come to an end. You’re singing a piece which isn’t to your taste and, as you listen to another part (it’s always another part, of course, never the sopranos) sing their line over and over and STILL make the same mistake, you look at your watch and realise there are still 57 long minutes left to go till tea time (and the word has gone round that it’s not even chocolate squares tonight, only oat crunches). The church heating’s set either (more…)
So: we walked the 25ish miles from Frome to Bath, stopping to swim, eat and pour water at various points along the way.Sounds like a kicking weekend, huh? But this turned out to be one of those experiences where time seems to expand to accommodate all the stuff its brings. I think of this as herniated time—time which bulges sideways and intrudes into eternity, or timelessness, or both (if they’re not the same).* All this to be obtained merely by putting one foot in front of the other.
The morning’s walk on day one took us across fields, past poplar-copses (we stopped to listen to the wind in the leaves) (more…)