Mindful Writing Day

The chrysanthemums picked from the garden a week ago remain perfectly tawny with not a petal dropped.

Last day

So cold my nose is numb but I still catch the clean clear scent of the Sarcocca in the hedge.

Clean Sheets - Friday 27th

My manuscript is printed. For the moment I'm content to sit with the pristine black and white sheets before I start with the red ink.

Tuesday Seventeenth

This morning the beech trees on the A5 roundabout are modelling themselves on a painting by Carrington - how slender their trunks are and look at the elegant tracery of their branches - but for the cars hurrying past

Frost - Monday Sixteenth

The frost beauty of the morning, red sun rising through silvered trees, is overshadowed by fears my car will go into another skid - one I can't control.

Saturday January Fourteenth

This morning’s cold weather makes the sky more blue or perhaps the clearness in the air makes it possible to see further.

Thursday’s Stone

This mug of tea, this pen, this writing book serve as markers to remind me of the day’s purpose.

Oh yes it is - January Eleventh

This morning at the ‘Walk to school’ stamping table I’m joined, or should that be ambushed, by two pantomime players – the principal boy and the Dame (who is really Mabel’s dad). Fortunately the head teacher doesn’t see them and there’s no sign of her although the Dame offers to pretend to be her if the Ofsted inspectors turn up today.

Seagulls - January tenth

Six seagulls lined up on top of the street light being raucous. I imagine the conversation.

'Shove up Bert I've hardly got room for me feet.'
'Awright Missus keep your feathers on'.

Hungary - Monday Ninth January

I walk into work with John, an academic colleague who spends most of the year working with Roma families. With a shudder he tells me of the return of forced labour to Hungary with people having to go into the forests to work.

How thin the veneer of civilisation is, how thin.

Sunday Eighth

Blackbirds call through the deepening dusk that feels mild as a March lamb. Sky flushed pink with the sunset.

Practice

You're playing that as if you're trying to get it perfect instead of learning it - my guitar teacher's delight

Golden Apples - Jan fifth

On the edge of the industrial estate a tree still draped with yellow apples, despite the gales, like a late Christmas decoration.

Look up

A magpie - no wait - a black and white woodpecker tapping its way up the bark of the Poplar tree - how red its feet are. This morning's gift for looking up from my screen.

3rd Jan

The rain running down the window pane looks so inviting to my parched office plants that I’m tempted to open the double glazed window to let the weather in.

January Second

Chocolate cornflake cakes - the simplest form of baking but you are rapt with concentration.

Another for January first 2012

First hot mug of tea of the day softens the edge of my headache.

January first 2012

Church bells ring out but my family late to bed are sleeping in the New Year.