Second assignment

I got my second assignment back this morning from the OU Creative Writing course and was nearly in tears when I read a 90% mark for it.

It is a short story called The Smell of Plums.

Now I just need to write the assignment for Start Writing Plays course, which is due by 28/01.

I keep changing my mind about it but time is running out.

I am also wading through the Poetry part of the Creative Writing course. Poetry is not really my thing but find it disheartening how many people think they are poets. Good poetry is wonderful. I love Ted Hughes, Dylan Thomas and Seamus Heaney. I particularly love a poem called The Great Horned Owl by Charles Simic. Rhay, my friend and writing mentor lent me a book of poems by Cynthia Rylant called God Went to Beauty School. It is a short collection of short poems about God in human situations - it is simply beautiful, and I don't believe in God but it is funny, true and human.

Yes like the little girl with the curl, poetry when it is good is very very good but when it is bad it is horrid.

Rhubarb winter sky

A couple of evenings ago the evening sky was saturated with this intense rhubarb colour. It left me open mouthed with awe. The whole world felt domed by this light.

At last!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6952353/Positive-thinking-making-us-miserable-says-author.html
Finally someone has put their head above the parapet and voiced what a lot of us have been thinking. I hope the world listens. Am off to see if I can order the book.

I thought I was the only twisted soul who wanted to puke everytime a pink ribbon appeared on my screen.

Oh I wish...

Am I the only one who finds this funny?

Athalassa Park

Yvonne, the woman responsible for my aching muscles and early morning rise today resulting in a 20 minute circuit of the neighbourhood before the sun was up!! I don't know whether to thank her or curse her.

She took me for a 'walk' in the Athalassa Park yesterday - 6kms and an hour and a half later I got back to the car amazed and delighted by the area. I have known it was here on the outskirts of the city, near to where we live but never bothered to explore it.

It is an oasis of green, trees, water and wildfowl. A place to walk and think among birdsong, empty paths and intriguing aromatic smells - except for the last cattle-dung waft - we could see no cattle but it was suspiciously near the army camp on the perimeter of the park.

The Park is about 840 hectares, and forestation was started around 1904. It has approximately 500 species of trees and shrubs and is effectively the lungs of Nicosia. Birds, fowl, owls, foxes, rabbits and lizards populate the park as well as cats and as Yvonne told me occaisionally young National Servicemen on exercise amongst the trees.

There are several bodies of water which resound with the sound of birds and frogs. Costas tells me there are a lot of fish in it as well. Below are black shags(?).

Truly a sward of green - the like of which rarely seen in this country.

Another waterhole - after a recent visit to South Africa I half expected to see hippos and elephants venturing forth.

Farm land on the edge, part of the Ministry of Agriculture I think, and the air was heavy with the sweet smell of cut grass.

Winter sun and shadows dappled the area, still lush after recent heavy rains in December.

Yvonne thinks these are berries from a pepper tree. The tree looked a bit like a weeping willow.

Such persistance of greens is a rarity here but all the more treasured because it is rare.

Below this bridge, sad to say, the lake was dammed with debris and rubbish.

What a delight the park was. It is 10 minutes from where I live and there are spots and vistas with seating and shelter which should make me go more often. It is the ideal place to gather thoughts and think about the writing away from the distractions and noise of everyday life and the internet. But will I go?