Abroad 100WCGU#4

Gosh, this was a hard one in The Head’s Office 100 Word Challenge this week. In previous weeks, participants have been given a phrase or picture as a prompt for our writing. This week, Julia has given us 5 beautiful words, selected from this list.

They are Ripple Brood Evocative Lilt Untoward.

So here’s my submission for this week:

Abroad

“There was nothing untoward,” I continued, then cursed at my choice of words, as the girl’s accusing eyes narrowed further.

“Leave my fella alone. Go back to your neck of the woods and get your own.” The scene was evocative of a bad soap opera; despite the situation, I smiled.

This morning, though, I couldn’t help but brood over the incident at the pub. The soft lilt of her accent had reminded me how distant I was from my own home.

I sighed, smoothed out the ripple in the bed sheet, floated the clean duvet over the top, and moved onto the next guest’s room.

The Edge (100WCGU#3)

I missed out on last week’s 100 Word Challenge, posed by Julia of The Head’s Office. This week the prompt is Their cries were heard . .

She hurried down to the edge, to where the sea meets the land. If only she’d been able to get away from Mrs Ellwood sooner. Simon had said he could only wait until the tide turned – after that he would have to leave, out into the North Sea, away from this place. She peered into the fading light and wondered if the speck of darkness on the horizon was his boat.

She looked up at the cliffs, to the gulls swooping overhead. Their cries were heard across the bay. If only they could carry her words to Simon. “Come back! Come back for me!”

100 Word Challenge #100WC

One of the things I have been doing in my absence from this blog (hello, waves, remember me?) is a recently started Open University course.  I’m trying to broaden my options and so signed up for an Openings unit (one of those courses that are gentle entrances into more challenging units).

 

As part of the course, I’ve had to write a 1000 word essay. Easy. And hard. Easy, because you can only put so much in. And hard, because you can only put so much in. I went over the 10% plus allowance on the word count. I just couldn’t get it down any more.

 

I enjoyed the writing though. I always forget how much I enjoy writing. I don’t know why I don’t it more often.

 

That word count restriction was obviously still buzzing in my veins when I stumbled across Julia’s challenge. I don’t visit Julia’s blog as often as I’d like to, so luck was with me today.

 

So here’s my 100 Word Challenge

It’s the perfect job. I know I can do it, even though I’ve never worked in a library. I could nail the application and if I’m focused and do a bit of homework, I could nail the interview too.

I’ve never felt so sure about something like this before. Where did this certainty come from? Is it just age or has there been a tipping point in my life where everything is so much clearer.

That job is my job.

The only trouble is it’s in north north London, ninety minutes travelling each way and the fares are crippling.

What does it always happen that way?

Day 5 – end of part 1

We have reached the end of part 1, the part where the new units and appliances are in, and everything works. We can start moving things back into cupboards and stocking the updated freezer, as well as having a good old clear out of all those items that we put into storage that clearly we don’t use anyway.

Did you want to see a picture? No, I didn’t think you did.

Of course part 2 includes making good the walls and applying a suitable surface (which will be probably be tiles – more choices to be made), sorting out the lighting and the floor (decisions), some decorating, and waiting for the permanent worksurfaces to be installed (we have temporary ones at the mo).

The windows that should have been put in during February, before the kitchen installation started, will go in on Monday (hopefully).  There was a misunderstanding in which the fitter thought we meant middle of March when we said the end of February. Hmmmm. We’re lucky that the surfaces are temporary ones, but there will be instant and sudden death if the sink is harmed in any way during the window fitting.

I love my new sink. It was hand-picked from hundreds after intensive auditions.

Still not interested in photos? Oh well.

So windows, walls, lights, tiles, paint, floor, granite.

Ok then. Pictures.

It will look faberoony when the walls are done and we have the permanent worktops. in the meantime, I can’t wait to have our first meal prepared in our new kitchen. So excited! What shall we have?

Day 4

I’m exhausted. So much to think about. But things are starting to look very exciting.

We concluded today that the floor will need re-doing, something we hadn’t budgeted for, but it can’t be avoided. My brain is just frazzled.

Day 3 – it’s all happening

We moved on from rubble to sawdust, as the rather fabulously laid-back fitter assembles the units.

I got rather over-excited by the prospect of being able to move around slightly move freely in the living/dining room, where the flat-packed units have been stored for the last week and a bit. “Look, I can walk though here. And I can walk back again.” A bit like Eeyore putting  his damp rag of a burst balloon, a birthday gift given by Piglet, into the empty pot gifted by Pooh, and then taking it out again. And then putting it in, and then out again.*

And look! Shiny! And useful.

Can’t wait to bake.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

* In A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore has a birthday. Once Pooh discovers that no-one was aware of the momentous day, he rushes home to fetch a gift. The gift he chooses is, of course, is a pot of honey, the contents of which somehow get eaten before it reaches Eeyore. Piglet’s present, a red balloon, cushions Piglet as he trips in his hurry to deliver the present, and it bursts. Both of the kind-hearted, but slightly foolish creatures are mortified that their presents are flawed. However, Eeyore loves both the Useful Pot and the balloon that will fit into it.

Oh, it’s much better when you read it yourself. Beg, steal or borrow a copy of the original.

Books update – sort of

I’ve added some inane drivel to my Books for 2010 page, just here.

Day 2

This is what the kitchen looked like at the end of day 1.

Can you spot the difference? Well, quite. Unfotunately there was a problem for one of the members of the team and they had to put another team on the job, who couldn’t start until today.

So work started at about 9.45 today with the fitter coming in to take units out.

What a state. These are the worst stages, when there in nothing to show for the beauty that is to be created. It’s interesting to see this space so open and vulnerable.

It’s been a day of high emotion. The offers came out for secondary schools and I was surprised, and delighted, that Rosie had been offered a place at the her first preference school. Bless her, she’s such a star.

Day 1

We are in the middle of pre-kitchen revamp hell.

Blissfully, someone else’s hands will be installing our new kitchen starting today, but in the meantime, we are surrounded by flat-pack kitchen units, new kitchen appliances and a fine layer of tile dust that is spreading itself through the house as we remove the tiles one by one and stare, aghast at the state of the walls behind.

It will be lovely when it’s done.

The Reading List

Late last year, Rosie and I were visiting schools. She’s in the last year of primary school and will be moving up to senior school in September.  We did the usual visits to the state schools – open evenings with hundreds of other parents shuffling round the same corridors, trying to glean  their chances of their child being the catchment area for this sort-after school.

Having completed the application form for the state schools, I was left with a feeling of blind panic. Our choices were not choices, our preferences (the government’s term for a perplexing, often unsatisfactory system of place allocation) were pointless. I decided to start looking at independent schools.

We’d missed all the open days, but the independent schools have a policy of offering visits/tours for individuals at other times, so Rosie and I found ourselves being shown around a local girls’ independent school by two sixth-form girls with an enthusiasm for Geography and Biology. We were shown lessons in progress, and were greeted pleasantly by all the staff whose lessons we peeked in upon.

One such lesson was English Literature. I’m not sure what age the girls were, probably 15 year olds. The teacher welcomed us and explained that they were discussing Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

I nodded knowingly when he named the book. How very interesting. Imagine studying that book for GCSE (and not something like Pride and Prejudice, which I studied at the same level when i was at school), I thought .

In reality, I had no idea what that book was about. I’d heard of the title, but could not say who had written it, nor tell you what it was even vaguely about. I suddenly felt mis-informed, and out of touch.

Of course, I may be neither of those things. The fact that I can’t remember the last novel I read has something to do with it. Was it pre-children? Not quite, but the ability to hold focus or even stay awake when reading sometimes is definitely affected by parenthood and does rather progression rather slow.

I also have to admit that I haven’t felt robust enough to tackle anything wasn’t likely to have a happy(ish) ending.

I’m not sure whether it’s Mrs Chili’s fault, leading me to the agreeable, bottomless pit that is Goodreads, but I have suddenly felt more connected with literature, and perhaps it’s curiosity, at not knowing what I don’t know,  I found myself filling up my Amazon shopping basket with a variety of classic and contemporary novels.

Of course this is a rather backward step in the whole de-cluttering the house thing, where I have been steadily thinning the bookshelves of books that I had thought, maybe, one day, I would read (yeah, right!). But, of course, if I hadn’t done that thinning, there would be no room for these.

I haven’t started on any of them yet, having finally picked up the Sue Grafton that I’ve had on my borrowed-and-will-read-very-soon-I-promise pile for quite a while.

I’ll let you know when I start on my new books. I’ve started a separate page on this blog to show you how my reading is progressing.