Jack's Dragon

Here is Jack's scary dragon, which shows Pokemon influences and gaming influences. He made it in woodwork. He likes drawing these little creatures and wants to be a games designer when he grows up:)

Two Things Hot/Cold

Hot Snowdrop

O my snowdrop

The snow clouds loom

Green shots defiant

A hardy bloom

In my back garden

You made your stance

First in the country

The world happenchance

The cold, the snow

You braved the lot

O my snowdrop

You are hot

Moving

Our first snowdrop.

I can report that I have been filling up my week with various activities. Most mornings and afternoons have now been accounted for by various courses, all free, which I have enjoyed thoroughly.

I have also thinking about getting back into Higher Education. I enjoyed doing my degree, lurking in the library and socialising with the mature students, so have applied for this workshop on creative writing at Hull Uni which starts in April. I find that once you get the discipline of writing assignments it has a knock-on effect and you are prompted into writing and reading more generally. I really need the threat of a deadline to get anything done.

I attended a course yesterday among some rather interesting and unusual people. I would like to write about this online. However, for some reason I now crave anonymity so I am moving to Freewebs where I am going to write a daily blog on my activities (copying Irene's successful format) while still commenting on all the old favourites here.

Two Things Plastic/Paper

An origami dinosaur - plastic paper

paper plastic

Two Things Challenge Paper/Plastic

The top photo I think sums up the generational divide between my kids and me- I am always surrounded by paper; books, newspapers, and you can see a pile of papers to the left of this picture abandoned by me. On photos I am never more than a foot away from reading matter of the paper variety, except of course while swimming, or going on country walks in wild places, though even then I usually like to have a leaflet to peruse at various intervals in my pocket.

To the right is the plastic, the new technology favoured by my kids (though they are quite literate), the Wii console, and they are usually found huddled around this screen or similar.

These are photos from Eleanor's birthday last year and show all the paper and plastic wrappings, which Eleanor and Holly Dolly later recycled into little houses. They probably enjoyed this part of the day best of all:)

Enjoying Life

I thought I'd better do something about the library fines (£30 last year). The problem is I use libraries all over and the books get forgotten about and left in piles of our books.

I decided to return a book by Martin Amis to Gypsyville library. I was going to jog there with my ipod but it needed charging so, naughtily, I borrowed Jack's. At the present time I usually listen to George Thorogood and The Destroyers, but I found that Jack is really onto the hard stuff, and a lot of ACDC is to be found on his ipod.

I like ACDC - they do what they do very well. Perfection in a heavy metal band. Jack has got the latest album of the rockers, who are now past the first flush of youth. I was watching their latest video on You Tube and I notice that, while they remain supremely energetic, the camera does not pan too closely to their faces lol

I challenge anyone not to feel very alive while running listening to 'Back in Black' on the ipod, though admittedly I was only on my way to pay a library fine, so hardly the epitomy of wild living LOL Scamp does this thing whereby he runs very closely and quickly past me so he is in front again and heralding the way.

Eleanor is now a published author - along with a lot of her classmates.

Mark made some soup from 'the River Cottage Cookbook', and I watched 'Duel'. The ipod had been returned to its rightful owner and Eleanor was guarding it on the rug, though I kept sneaking over to nick it, and, on occasions she turned to find me on the with the stolen ipod earpieces attached to my ears as if by magic LOL

Watched 'Duel' and enjoyed this. Lots of weird, alienating camera angles, obviously still influencing films now. I thought, this really, really good, and sure enough it was directed by Stephen Spielburg. I thought some of the music sounded familar (Jaws), and the film exploited the way cars and trucks can look like sinister people.

Enjoying the Snow