A meme of seven ~ lucky for some!

A meme of sevens ~ lucky for some. I’m not one for the memes that go across the blog-o-sphere but Gordon Bonnet tagged me in one that intrigued me somewhat. The idea was that you go to page 77 of your current work in progress, or most recently completed story (or page 7 if you [...]

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Tales of the Wellspring part 2 ~ the origins

Tales of the Wellspring part 2 ~ the origins I’ve always struggled with community, with being among people constantly. It’s always made me feel as if there is something horribly wrong with me that after a couple of days I start to feel irritable, angry and then finally desperate. The first time I began to [...]

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Analysing the creative process~ part 2 by Marc Nash

(This post came from an email exchange between Marc and I after I had been worrying about losing my creativity. Marc was happy to have his process shared here) I’ve read books on the sources of creativity, mainly by psychologists & analysts. None really clinch it for me. You’ve probably got your own ideas on [...]

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Ties That Bind Us 2 ~ a poem about the bonds of love and loss

Ties that Bind 2 Do not cut those ties To those you have lost. The blade hurts beyond bearing And cuts more than you know. Let those ties fray rather In the winds of passing time. Thread by thread Strand by strand, Time wears the fabric down. The first to fray is need; Wiry like [...]

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Heart and Hearth – how a sense of belonging can heal the soul

Heart and Hearth – how a sense of belonging can heal the soul  Despite the fact that I go away for work often enough to keep a separate bag of toiletry essentials, I really struggle to leave my home for holidays. Even for work, I over-pack and take things that might baffle a Customs official [...]

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“All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?”

“All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” I was cycling home yesterday from my optician’s appointment and as I whizzed past a pub, the opening lines of “Eleanor Rigby” filled the street and my consciousness for a moment. I’ve always loved that song, was actually one I could play on the guitar, [...]

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Lost in translation ~ or the perils of being a teacher of English as a foreign language.

Lost in translation ~ perils of being a teacher of English as a foreign language.   As regular readers may have picked up, one of my jobs is as a teacher of English as a foreign language; the summer school is rapidly draining the life out of me as fast as a pint of Guiness [...]

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The Tear-Glass

TheTear-Glass (a tear-glass was a tiny vial of glass that was used at a Roman funeral in ancient times to collect the tears of the mourners and which was then sealed and placed in the tomb. I saw one for the first time today in a little local museum.) Dim blue-grey glass Translucent still with [...]

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What I am and what I am not

What I am and what I am not I’m not a teacher, as such, and I have nothing to teach you. But we might learn together. I don’t have any answers, not the definitive big answers to the big questions. I just have more questions. But my new questions might inspire you to ask some [...]

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Making an Impression on the world ~ or why we can never be merely observers

Making an impression on the world ~ or why we can never be merely observers  My most recent trip brought home to me in a number of ways how much of an impression we can make as individuals on the world and how easy it is to underestimate the impact our actions and inactions can have [...]

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