It was our school sports day last Friday, and as I went through the day's itinerary with my tutor group, I mentioned the staff races. One of my lovely students piped up “Miss, are you going to race?” and I answered flippantly, as I often do, “Do I look like I run? If you ever see me running, you should run too, there’s probably something scary chasing me!” Humour is such a commonly used defence mechanism, and those of us who are fat, physically unfit or disabled (and I fit into all three of those categories) often make light of things by telling a joke rather than make anyone feel uncomfortable. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, in fact many comedians have made a career out of it, but perhaps there are alternative responses. I am fabulously fat - and before anyone tells me not to put myself down that's really not what I am doing. I am fat. I have always been fat despite decades of diets and exercise plans and at almost fifty years old I have finally le...
As a child I loved to write but I haven't done very much of it since leaving school. This particular challenge then, will hopefully reignite my passion for creative writing! I decided on a poem as my weekend project, I wanted to write something that could be completed in a relatively short time so that I wouldn't lose interest and put it aside. Then I decided to try a sestina because my biggest problem is settling on a topic and getting started and the tight constraints of this style narrow your choices. A sestina is a poem with 39 lines. The final words of the first six lines are repeated in the other lines, in a specific pattern so the same words keep coming back like echoes. They are a bit like a puzzle so they are lots of fun to write! The inspiration for my sestina was a photograph of a tree that was felled to make way for the HS2. It has been widely shared on Facebook and it royally pissed me off, I don't mind telling you! I hope you like my poem, please let me know ...
A quick pre-Christmas trip to Southampton provided me with the opportunity to complete this task. I am slightly intimidated by IKEA. The bizarre one way system, the room mock-ups which put my home to shame, the complete inability to pronounce the name of anything, the 8000 steps required just to buy some plants and a tool kit........ The meatballs were great though!
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