Sunny Days

Well, we've had a fantastic weekend's sunshine down here. Hope the rest of the country has. It makes you want to stop all work and just go out and enjoy yourself. I hope that you've had the opportunity for some rest and relaxation. I've just been out for lunch with 3 of my children. We went to a place called Grove Ferry where the pub is just by the banks of the river - very picturesque.

Now Catherine is getting ready to go back for her last few weeks as a student. We've been preparing answers to interview questions. She has her first interview on 10th June and is hoping to land a good job as a junior physio. She has done well in her course so we're hoping that someone will snap her up.

In the meantime I'm trying to decide whether I could swing that I had the qualifications to apply for a job - 2 days a week up in London. It's a creative writing post connected in with science so, if I could write a creative CV and plan of work, then just maybe I could be considered. I've got to decide whether the time I put into applying is worth it in comparison to the possibility that I might be shortlisted. Decisions...

Weather Woes

The Bank Holiday is over and the weather has turned. Sunshine with a few clouds has changed to driving rain and not a sunbeam in sight. The English weather! how we love to talk about it, moan about it, lament it and long for warmer climes.

How much do you think our climate affects the kind of people that we are? Could it be that because we have to cope with so many changes in the weather, then we are adaptable in other areas as well? Or is it that because we have no consistency then we become moody and irritable as we cannot gauge how the day is going to be?

Well, maybe the weather is not the ultimate decider of our characters - individual or national - but I'm sure many things in our lives do affect how we turn out. And working out those things can take a lifetime in understanding ourselves.

Bank Holiday Tidy

It's Bank Holiday weekend and the weather is great. I've been sorting out one of our sheds - the one that has got so chaotic that we couldn't really get in it anymore. So I've done a load of bags for the tip and then ordered it again. Funny now, I feel inspired to do some gardening again - now I can easily access all I need. So I think a trip to the garden centre might also happen over the weekend.

Are you one of those people who need order before you can get on with things or do you prefer creative chaos? Or maybe a mixture of the two? I think I fall in that category - sometimes I need to be organised and tidy but also I find that when one creative thought starts coming then it is followed by others and anything seems possible. Unfortunately, I'm not there at the moment. I'm struggling to get back into writing - in the meanwhile at least the garden is getting sorted!

Back to Khadhambi's

Last night I went back for my second session at Khadhambi Asalache's house - and it was as good as the first time. Yet again I was struck by the beauty of the place, the intricacy of the work and the hours of dedication. It is a real inspiration to keep pushing forward in the creative things I want to do and creating environments in which I wish to find myself.

The downside was a bummer of a journey home. I didn't get to Victoria in time for the 10pm train so it was an hour's wait and then to find it was a coach replacement service between Faversham and Ramsgate. So at 1.45am I finally crawled into bed. I still think that it was worth going, even if I am a little sleepy today. There was real energy among the facilitators and the writers and a variety of work produced which could be used in all sorts of situations to promote and help people enjoy the property.

If you're a National Trust member, you can read all about this house in this summer's edition of the magazine - and if you know anyone who'd like to support it, I can fully recommend it.

Appreciating Beauty 2

So did you agree? Do we need life experience to appreciate beauty? Do we need to be traumatised before we begin to appreciate things in life?

I'm not sure I can give a definitive answer. I do remember thinking as a young adult I didn't ever want to grow up into one of those people who spend their time discussing gardens or art or architecture and now I'm middle aged I enjoy contemplating and talking about such things. So perhaps my own experience would bear it out. However, I have to say I've tried to inculcate my children at an earlier age and some of them already appreciate going round an art gallery or an old house.

And what do we mean by appreciate? Is it just a matter of cerebral acknowledgement or is it being moved at some 'deeper' level? And how do we work out what somebody else's experience could be? Now that leads me onto another book I'm reading - you'll have to wait for the next post to find out more.

Appreciating Beauty

I've just started reading Alain de Botton's The Architecture of Happiness. I'm only in the first chapter but here is something that caught my eye:

Life may have to show itself to us in some of its authentically tragic colours before we can begin to grow properly visually responsive to its subtler offerings, whether in the form of a tapestry or a Corinthian column, a slate tile or a lamp. It tend not to be the young couples in love who stop to admire a weathered brick wall or the descent of a banister towards a hallway; a disregard for such circumscribed beauty being a corollary of an optimistic belief in the possibility of attaining a more visceral, definitive variety of happiness.

We may need to have made an indelible mark on our lives, to have married the wrong person, pursued an unfulfilling career into middle age or lost a loved one before architecture can begin to have any perceptible impact on is, for when we speak of being 'moved' by a building, we allude to a bitter-sweet feeling of contrast between the noble qualities written into a structure and the sadder wider reality within which we know them to exist. A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception.

What do you think? Do you agree?

Constructing a poem

I've spent the last two days at home. It's interesting how you begin to get into a rhythm of working when the pressure is on for a deadline. It makes me wonder how much I could achieve if I could continue this momentum. Tomorrow I'm off to London again where I usually find inspiration. So I hoping to reach my drafts of my poem/s by Friday when they need to be emailed off.

So how much is inspiration, how much perspiration and how much pure construction? There has certainly been quite a lot of research before I even began to think about writing any of the parts. Then there was consideration of form to use as, for these poems, I wanted some of them to have a definite form. And then there is the germinating time to let all mull around and the words begin to flow. For some, this has happened almost all in my head, for others, there have been many drafts and changes along the way Is there anything such as true inspiration? Somehow I doubt it - I think almost all poets 'correct' their inspiration after they have first written it down.

Romeo, Romeo...

And so I was entertained yesterday. We went to see the RSC at the Globe in Romeo and Juliet. It was a great atmosphere and the play was handled well by a mainly young cast - there were several stage debuts written up in the programme. The sun shone, the crowd was appreciative and the cast did well in playing up to the crowd.

But the shocker is - something which we just let pass by - Juliet was only 14! She was considered old enough to be married, old enough to fall deeply in love, old enough to choose to die. That's hard to fathom when we rant and rave about teenage pregnancy rates. Maybe... or perhaps I shouldn't go there!

Van Dyck

I had another day out in London - I met up with a friend and we went to the van Dyck exhibition at Tate Britain. if you like grand historical paintings it is the place to go.But you'll have to hurry as it finishes on May 17th. It just amazes me how he was able to make material look like you could crunch and crush it and the lace is so intricately detailed. It may be out of date in terms of modern artwork but it shows incredible talent.

I'm busy researching and writing a series of poems from Tuesday's adventure. I drafted one on the train on the way up and have just typed it up to work on in the coming week. I'm trying to work on a series of six which are interlinking - not sure how far I'll get before my deadline next Friday. So, if you don't hear from me, you'll know I'm busy composing.

Back Home and Happy

It's been quite a while since I last blogged. I had a good week away in Rye - it's a very pretty town - and, to me, more importantly, I managed to cover quite a lot of the work that I wanted to do. I came back refreshed and motivated and straight into a busy, exciting week.

Yesterday was fantastic. I was lucky to be chosen as 1 of 8 to get on a writing course at the home of Khadambi Asalache. You can read all about the house here www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/jan/20/khadambi-asalache-national-trust - 23k -

We are the first group that have used the house. We had a session yesterday and another in 2 week's time. IN between we need to try to write something based around the house. The ideas are flowing but it will be harder to make them into something with which I'm pleased.

When the National Trust do open the house, I recommend you visit. It's one of those places you'd never expect existed from the outside.