ExiledKiwi

Autumn

2010-10-08T11:47:00.000+03:00

Way - hey! it's epic cloud time again. The skies drift, roll and change. Mountains, banks, silver and gilt-edged, shapes and streaks. All awe-inspiring. I love it.
Still can't post pics. Damn! What has gone wrong?

I hate getting up ...

2010-10-07T07:29:00.000+03:00

... but oh it is so worth it to see the sunrise before the day opens and shows all the flaws and soullessness (is this a word) of the area I live.
I seem to have lost the function for uploading pictures. Damn. The computer starts clicking and the upload box is blank.

New writing course with OU

2010-10-06T09:17:00.001+03:00

I am completely taken up with and enjoying the new course. Happily I finally seem to have a tutor who engages. Time will tell.
My current obsession with my mother is once again spilling out into my writing, but I am not fighting it as I think that I need to indulge it to clear it. Until I do, it will continue to impinge on me like a scab that I keep going back to scratch.

Last night

2010-10-05T12:04:00.001+03:00

Tuesday, 05 October 2010

Gosh did I feel an idiot last night. Monday nights are Costas’ boring Rotary nights and I usually don’t go. But he rang me mid-morning and said ‘it’s the German Ambassador tonight.’ So I said ‘okay I’ll come because he will speak in English.’

Thought nothing more, got tidied in the evening – nothing flash just smart-casual and went off to pick him up from the hospital. As we were driving something he said made me twig this was not Rotary we were heading to. No, it wasn’t – it was only a celebration cocktail party at the German Ambassador’s home to celebrate 20 years of German re-unification. We arrived and all the women were in their best party frocks, jewellery and carefully done hair – there was I looking like a country bumpkin. Men in white, long-limbed, blonde and dashing from the German Navy playing in a little orchestra, all the ambassadors, the Cyprus president and his cabinet and there am I with wayward hair, black trousers and a jaunty striped T-shirt and flat shoes and no sparkle. Costas told me I looked like someone from the navy myself. So we ate, drank and chatted before leaving pretty quickly. Costas is lucky he is still alive this morning.

I have booked for us to go to England for four days at the end of October (it’s another long holiday weekend here) to see the kids and for Costas to have a deserved break. I have booked us seats at the opera (yuk but he likes it). La Boheme by Puccini at the ENO. We are flying EasyJet - that should be interesting!

Where did the summer go?

2010-09-29T09:13:00.000+03:00

I stopped posting because A215 assignments and life took over my world. But it is time to return. Summer has been busy, difficult, challenging and fun.
The good stuff - my daughter Sophie got married in July in what was probably the most perfect wedding ever - and she organised almost all of it. Now we have the happy news she is pregnant. What a weird and unexpected feeling the the knowledge you are to be a grand parent brings. I thought I was ambivilent aout it - didn't mind either way. But the morning she told me a quiet nugget of joy crept into my heart and lodges there still.
We had two lots of visitors - family and friends and it was just lovely to share our tiny corner of paradise with people we love.
I acquired two puppies - one was planned, the second found abandoned 10 days after I got the first. Georgie my first is tan with touches of black and white and has kohl-rimmed Cleopatra eyes and very short piano legs and is named so because I got him on St George's Day. My Cypriot husband calls him Kokkos, which is a Cypriot nick-name for Geoge. Tina our second mutt was found on St Constantine's day - hence Constantina - Tina. She is long-legged (for a small dog) with charcoal grey curly fur and peeps out with dark olive bewildered eyes at you and at the slightest admonishment rolls over in submission. She is dumb but sweet. The good thing is they make me walk twice a day which helps the battle with the bulges no end.

Costas had a heart procedure in London which was challenging for a week or so but touch wood, fingers crossed and three spits to the wind the results so far are good.

I have just returned from three weeks in New Zealand where I spent happy hours with my father and sisters and every day was astounded by the sheer beauty of my homeland and its people.

Now I am about to start my next Open University module - a level 3 Creative Writing course and can't wait to get stuck in.

New Zealand Clouds

2010-04-18T10:53:00.001+03:00

Nelson sunset

Why are the skies in New Zealand so magnificent?

Clouds are my thing. They fascinate, inspire and delight. Both here in Cyprus and especially in New Zealand. In NZ the skies are bigger, higher, wider - unattainable, limitless. I feel as if I am under a celestial dome. I have masses of cloud pictures so be prepared to be bored.

Cromwell About to be beamed up because frederique and I are bad...smoking!

Tangahano

2010-02-23T20:23:00.002+02:00

http://teaohou.natlib.govt.nz/journals/teaohou/issue/Mao34TeA/full.html

http://www.antiqbook.co.uk/boox/johnt/001472.shtml

I was searching on Google today to see if I could find anything about my mother's first and best book, published in New Zealand in 1960. Apart from many sites offering copies for sale, I found these two links which offer some information about the book, TANGAHANO.

Spring

2010-02-18T14:11:00.004+02:00

Spring is here. truly today. The chill has gone from the early morning walk. I fear there will be no more fires lit in the hearth this year.

In Spring, Cyprus turns green and gold. Yellow is the overriding colour. In buttery burst come the lapsanes, eagerly picked, sauteed in olive oil and drenched in beaten eggs with a squeeze of lemon to finish. The Lazarus daisies intensely yellow rise again in the fields and smother them.

Fluorescent yellow clumps of tiny oxynuthia grow and soon forsythia, wild fennel and golden rod will jostle for space.

Today the sky is blue and empty, white cabbage butterflies drift across the fields and birdsong fills the air. Already there are smatterings of mauve anenomes and red poppies. I'm told the snakes are emerging from their hibernation.

oxynuthia

Lapsanes

Assignment result

2010-02-17T08:22:00.003+02:00

I was thrilled last week to get my final Play Writing assignment back and found I had scored an amazing 95%. It gave me an enormous rush of confidence and pleasure.
I had meantime contacted the only local to Nicosia, theatre company in English to ask if I can sit in on their new production from start to finish to get a feel and understanding of theatre in the real so to speak. They hope to start a new production late April and are very welcoming to me (it is also perfect timing for me).
http://www.alphasquare.com.cy/productions

Have also spent the last week or so transfixed by the New Yorker short story podcasts. The sheer pleasure of hearing good writing from across a span of time, read by writers and discussed by them about what makes them and the writers so good has been wonderful and instructive. The downside is that you feel that there is little point in 'picking up your own pen' so to speak. But I do.

Poetry and the New Yorker

2010-02-04T13:52:00.005+02:00

Cover of New Yorker

At the moment it is Poetry with a capital 'P' on the course. My assignment is due in a couple of weeks but I think I've cracked it this week. I dreaded it but finally it wasn't so bad and I found something to write about which I enjoyed and I think was suited to the poetic form (or at least the form I created). To tell the truth I actually enjoyed it. But in the long run poetry is not for me, I think.

As a result I have spent too long this morning downloading from the New Yorker, audio files of authors reading the short stories of other authors, which they then discuss with the literary editor of the New Yorker. My thinking is that these are current and quality, something to aspire to, something to learn from.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction

I also subscribed to the magazine which at 80Euros for 47 issues delivered to my door is a pretty good deal I feel.

I tried revisiting my incomplete Nano novel this week and still cannot work up enough interest to return to it on a serious basis. I think there is some good writing in it but there is also a lot of wordage done just to pad out the word count. One day....

Second assignment

2010-01-18T08:23:00.003+02:00

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

2010-01-12T12:04:00.002+02:00

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!

2010-01-09T12:52:00.001+02:00

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...

2010-01-08T06:57:00.002+02:00

Am I the only one who finds this funny?

Athalassa Park

2010-01-08T06:11:00.006+02:00

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?

belated haiku on a spooky cloud

2009-12-23T08:48:00.001+02:00

what is hovering

as a winter sun sets?

visitors unknown?

Morning Glory -daily Haiku

2009-12-23T08:44:00.001+02:00

the morning is bright

and Spring is coming early;

the first narcissus

Peace is restored

2009-12-23T08:36:00.002+02:00

Happy though it is to have a house full of family, young people, laughter, mess and chaos, there is something sweet about having my spaces returned to me.

So long to blog

2009-12-21T08:13:00.003+02:00

I have neglected the blogs for nearly a month now. I think after the Nano I was written out. But had to forge on with two assignments for the Open University courses.
I was delighted to get 80 for my play writing assignment - I am finding writing in this discipline very appealing.
Also Costas (husband) had a 60th birthday and our closest family flew in from Greece and UK for a wonderful week.
Christmas is looming, course work is piling up and I've lost my course book which considering it is the size of a small house defies logic.
Hopefully when thinks calm down I will be more inspired.

I am a winner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-11-25T17:28:00.001+02:00

Officially as verified by the NaNo site 50687 words, but not yet finished.

Two gruelling days

2009-11-24T21:50:00.001+02:00

After a Nano drought oover the weekend - life got in the way and I had not read Louisa Lemon's advice, I have 'written' nearly 10,000 words over the last two days.
Word count now:: 44224.

The oddest thing

2009-11-19T18:21:00.002+02:00

I have been writing rubbish in desperation to make up wordage for over two weeks now. The last couple of days thought I am suddenly finding that my writing is improving, I am seeing a strange unforced structure forming, possible devices which have occurred naturally which I can tap into. I am actually beginning to quite like what I am writing. Not great literature. Yet.

Daily haiku word count

2009-11-19T18:17:00.001+02:00

over half way now
thirty three thousand seven
hundred and seventy

33770 yay!!!!!

Today's target

2009-11-18T08:04:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I reached 29,073 words. Why did I stop there? Probably because I had run out of my daily ration of crap. Today I will reach, maybe pass, the 30,000 words barrier. I will. I will. I will. I will take crap to new unimaginable heights.

On target

2009-11-16T09:41:00.000+02:00

27259 words of pure unadulterated rubbish so far!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nano count

2009-11-10T17:32:00.003+02:00

Nano count now: 20380!

I just liked this

2009-11-10T17:27:00.000+02:00

Weekly Haiku

2009-11-09T09:00:00.001+02:00

Cyprus is greening
after a week of rainfall;
I can breathe again

Nano progress

2009-11-07T13:59:00.002+02:00

I was up just after five am today. It went like a dream. Count now up to 17918 of which 4545 written today. Time for a siesta, I think. Of course it is all pretty dire, but so what. When you really let yourself go, it is quite an enjoyable experience. haven't dared read back though.

nano progress

2009-11-05T22:54:00.003+02:00

SMUG
It got off to a cracking start, stalled, but is now getting back into gear. I think I've figured it out. just write. No matter how inane, out of context, inconsistant just write. Stay in the thread but worry about crafting, tying up details, refining thoughts later, much later.

So now have the grand total of 12033 words, 2287 of which were written today, with interruptions.

Feeling better as I'd dropped to under 1000 yesterday and was feeling disheartened.

Problems

2009-11-04T12:22:00.003+02:00

Laptop is in hospital so am using husband's which is all in Greek. Which does strange things to text sometimes. Anyway I am struggling with the Nano write - I didn't think it would be easy but do you know how hard it is to even write rubbish?

So my postings might be a little thin over the next few weeks.

Or maybe this?

2009-11-01T15:49:00.001+02:00

Enough for today

2009-11-01T15:41:00.003+02:00

Well it poured out in a massive free write. 6803 words. probably most of them rubbish, hackneyed and confusing. I'm a bit scared to read it over. Later perhaps. Doubt very much if it will go on at this rate. This is newbie enthusiasm coupled with a relatively free day of distractions. Tomorrow life gets in the way.

Somebody posted this picture of Tennessee Williams - dressing gown, cigarette holder, and thoughful expression.

Something to aspire to, methinks.

Nano has started

2009-11-01T10:43:00.002+02:00

Waited up until midnight my time last night to set off on this crazy journey for November. Being in Cyprus, I was one of the first on the Nano forum at the OU to start. I wrote a 1000 plus words and then went to bed. Have been tapping away this morning and while it is all pretty bad I have notched up nearly three thousand words.
I didn't do any planning or character research (what is that?) but will find out about my characters as I go.
I had in mind to do one vague idea that has been knocking around in my almost empty brain but found myself writing something quite different. Will it work? Can I sustain it for 50,000 plus words? Who knows but it is fun to try. Of course this is day one, only 29 to go.
Last night on the forum peeps were suggesting chocolate and ice cream as support. Foolishly I treated myself to a big bowl of Praline & Cream ice cream with lashings of passion fruit syrup - all that talk sucked me in. Big mistake, still feel decidedly sick and have a sour stomach this morning, but I'm writing through it.
Watch this space.

Daily Haiku - Empty

2009-10-31T07:13:00.002+02:00

there are no more words
left to say or to inspire;
the pen has run out

Daily Haiku - Summer has gone

2009-10-31T07:11:00.001+02:00

the air is cooler
out come the long-sleeved t-shirts
socks call from the drawer

Daily Haiku - Jacarandas

2009-10-30T13:39:00.001+02:00

blue on blue; breathless

beauty and perfect balance

on dark skeletons

Daily Haiku - rain, finally

2009-10-28T12:56:00.000+02:00

yesterday rain came
drowning dust hanging heavy
in the atmosphere

Jacarandas & Pretoria

2009-10-27T19:17:00.003+02:00

Armed response

Pretoria at this time of year is a sea of flowering jacarandas - have never seen anything like it. Streets are carpeted with the fallen leaves, sidestreets are tunnels of hazy blue. It was one of the most glorious things I have ever seen.

The pictures above say the rest.

Daily Haiku-Return from South Africa

2009-10-27T10:15:00.005+02:00

to come home safely;

left behind jacarandas,

Spring and constant fear

Daily Haiku - driving home

2009-10-11T18:53:00.002+03:00

short trees, long shadows
evening light speaks of autumn;
still summer lingers

Haiku in response to Clancy's comment on the snail haiku

2009-10-08T19:41:00.002+03:00

Daily Haiku - A gift

2009-10-08T10:38:00.001+03:00

wild mushrooms freshly

picked, mottled, alien presence

fried to perfection

Daily Haiku - early morning gift

2009-10-08T08:54:00.001+03:00

intense breathtaking

cactus blooms in the morning

have died by nightfall

Daily Haiku - Patience

2009-10-06T14:05:00.003+03:00

the snail waits for rain

locked on the wall all summer:

dormant, motionless

Daily Haiku -seasons

2009-10-05T08:02:00.000+03:00

two Springs grace Cyprus:
before the searing summer,
after the heat dies

Daily Haiku - up with the birds

2009-10-04T21:08:00.001+03:00

luminous full moon
wanes in the western night as
sun dawns in the east

Daily Haiku - garden maintenance

2009-10-03T11:38:00.002+03:00

pruned, shorn, trimmed and tamed
autumn garden naked as
schoolboy's new haircut

Daily Haiku - not a happy bunny

2009-10-02T17:50:00.001+03:00

today the O.U.
have mucked me about no end
I am not happy

Daily Haiku - 2

2009-09-29T15:56:00.000+03:00

the pale grey-green leaves

of the olive trees shimmer

in the winter sun

Daily Haiku - summer wanes

2009-09-29T08:31:00.001+03:00

long days, shorter nights
the earth turns on its axis
long nights, shorter days

Yesterday's Daily Haiku

2009-09-29T08:26:00.000+03:00

I posted this on the wrong blog yesterday. Duh!

Daily Haiku - still no rain

bearing promises
autumn clouds thunder but leave
with their empty threats

No Haiku, merely thoughts

2009-09-26T09:31:00.000+03:00

Thinking it over I’ve come to the realisation that I am missing the mark on the Haiku thing. While it is a very elegant exercise to pick a subject, create three lines, each with the correct syllable count, and relatively easy, in itself the result is not enough. If I understand the Haiku correctly, there should also be a pivotal shift or denouement by the end. That I am not achieving. Also, this posting of a photo taken of said subject shows an utter lack of faith in my words and their ability to conjure a valid image/idea. Therefore, I need to put more time and thought into them and decide whether to stop posting the pictures.
Yesterday I had arranged to meet Rhay and Sandra at noon for coffee to ‘celebrate’, in Rhay’s words, a week of writing. More specifically to celebrate her epiphany about a basic fault she has finally cracked in her novel after struggling with it over four drafts. I decided to get to Costa Coffee early, to sit and observe and work on description exercises in public. However, I did something else. On the OU forums there has been some buzz about a New Scientist competition/call for a piece of flash fiction set a 100 years in the future. I am not a SF or Fantasy fan but reading over a couple of pieces brave people had offered for critique, I was struck by how clichéd and predictable and bizarre they were. I know that sounds a contraindication but what I mean is this: I do not believe 100 years into the future will mean crazy societal changes, weird names and total loss of how we live our lives today. There will be radical shifts, yes, but only in a way that regulates how we live. I do not believe there will be a shift to an unrecognizable and almost alien way of living from that which we have now. These changes will have seeped into our lives, almost passively and we will not be so aware of how our world has changed. People will still be called John, Mary, Poppy etc. Not Zorda, Kreetor or Torphid. Anyway, I had a small idea running in the back corridors of my brain. I sat down to write it, not as a piece of flash fiction, as it needed more to flesh it out, as an exercise to realise my thoughts. An hour and a half later, I had a rough, almost ready, short story of maybe 1000-1500 words. I rather liked it and I like the effort of trying to imagine known or old concepts differently so that they are at once familiar but slightly menacing or at the least worrying.

Daily Haiku - summer is over

2009-09-25T08:42:00.001+03:00

the swallows have left

their nest above the front door

empty and silent

Daily Haiku

2009-09-23T08:40:00.002+03:00

hills are draped with gold
trees still black as dying night
light changes focus

shadow-scapes of trees

fade from black into green life

as the dawn creeps in

Daily Haiku - The Eternal Triangle

2009-09-21T08:27:00.003+03:00

cats fighting at dawn
two ginger males stake their claim
on Rocky, baby girl

Daily Haiku - the paradox of the bumble bee

2009-09-20T18:01:00.002+03:00

bumble bee hovers
in the flowers hard at work
unaware of heft

Daily Haiku - After the rain

2009-09-19T22:22:00.002+03:00

fingers of ash streak
the sky falling towards night
clouds backlit with gold

Daily Haiku

2009-09-18T16:52:00.002+03:00

a September storm
around mid-afternoon swept
through and soon was gone

DAILY HAIKU

2009-09-17T13:13:00.004+03:00

DAILY HAIKU

Yes I've started the course, to get ahead and it says to do a daily haiku.

So I shall.

ceramic red-tailed

bird sits in the summer sun

awaiting winter

The BRB has arrived.

2009-09-15T18:55:00.002+03:00

Finally, today, delivered to my door. The big, more hefty, red book. Also four audio CDs, a study guide, and the dreaded Tutor Marked Assessment (TMA) book. Five TMAs and one End of Course Assessment (ECA). All challenging and exciting. So from not having anything crying to me for attention I now have these and the Stephen Fry poetry book An Ode Less Travelled. His book has mixed opinions but if nothing else it is an entertaining read.

Am listening to a BBC book club podcast with John Irving, writer of The World According to Garp. The podcasts are terrific ranging from international writers to Annie Proulx, Alice Walker, Sebastian Faulks, derek walcott and so many more. Bliss.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/wbc/

Unexpected

2009-09-14T11:04:00.005+03:00

a box of old thoughts

unearthed in my autumn years

bring flowering ideas

Waiting

2009-09-14T10:42:00.003+03:00

I'm waiting somewhat impatiently for the arrival of the course book, a big red book apparently, affectionately known as the BRB. Everyone else in the world seems to have got theirs except me.
To while away the time usefully, I am in the process of trawling all my notebooks, travel diaries and itinerent scraps of paper for random ideas, snippets of phrases, half written stories & articles, and am transcribing them into one large hardbacked book.
It is surprising and amazing to rediscover ideas going back ten or more years. Ideas which I have never used but have faithfully carted around the world in the belief I would use them one day. As I read and write, new thoughts spring forth, but what perplexes me most are the cryptic phrases which have no immediate resonance and I am left wondering what was in my head. Happily the words themselves are suggesting new things which I am including in brackets in order to distinguish the original thoughts from the new. Even trying to decipher my writing is launching new ideas.
It is a task which is making me extraordinarily happy.

Posting debate

2009-09-09T09:35:00.003+03:00

On the OU forum, there now seems to be a debate about whether to post work which might be used during the course, as it could mean accusations of plagarism (from oneself?) and get into trouble with copyright issues (I wish!). But it is useful to put pieces out, because it feels like a personal declaration of taking myself seriously. Instead of keeping my scribbles close to my chest, I am taking the big step of opening out to anyone (no matter how few, or how related) to read.
So I will keep posting but perhaps with a more considered choice.

Not a Haiku

2009-09-04T18:24:00.003+03:00

a miscounted line
mars my haiku as summer
refuses to fade

Yesterday's previous paltry attempt has too many syllables. Oh well...
Maybe this is better?

still blue pool ruffles
in a hot September wind
and autumn slips in

David Hockney

2009-09-04T11:07:00.002+03:00

Hi Anna,
David Hockney (whose work I love) typically paints these intense summer blue pools. I felt the DH tag would shortcut the description of such a summer pool.
Thanks for your comments. This is fun.

Is this a Haiku?

2009-09-04T09:17:00.001+03:00

David Hockney pool
September afternoon autumn
gusts pleat the surface

Where to start?

2009-09-03T13:57:00.006+03:00

I get the drift from the A215 Creative writing forum that having a blog is A GOOD THING. I don't know but am willing to try anything that makes me write. So I need to start producing current pieces, as I'm pretty tired of my old stuff which has been in the pipeline for so long. I think that I need a fresh outlook so this is my attempt. The intention is to post something every day, no matter how small or inconsequential. That is the intention. Whether I do is another matter. Any way here is a picture of the most magical bookshop I've ever been in. It's in Paris, near Notre Dame and is called Shakespeare & Co. Tumbling books, steep narrow staircases, tight aisles, battered comfy chairs to sit and browse, sunlight spilling into the upstairs reading room and a cute cupboard for would be writers to bang out their masterpieces on an old red typewriter (or tripewriter as my mother used to call it).