Back from a week’s break in the Peak District – the excuse being that it was our daughter’s 21st birthday and she’s at University up there. Beautiful part of the world, and the sun even shone on the day we climbed Mam Tor. Nice one, God.
However, despite having plenty of time to let the mind wander, I didn’t manage to come up with as many ideas for stories (or even poems) as I’d hoped. I did manage to tie together most of the loose ends in one piece in time to finish it off in time for today’s deadline, but I’m still without either a story or a poem for Round Seven of the Whittaker Prize, and we’re over halfway through the fortnight.
As far as the Whittaker is concerned, I’m still (just) hanging on in sight of the leader in the story section, but things took a bit of a turn for the worse in the poetry in Round Six. I’d managed to lead the poetry section for the first five rounds, without really knowing how. And then I read this article about sonnets in the Independent, and I thought “Ooh, I’d like to write one of them”. So I did. And proceeded to come a serious cropper, scoring a stonking 59/100. However, on the bright side, it’s probably the first poem that I’ve ever written that Mrs P has really liked, which counts for quite a lot – especially as it is a love poem of sorts. Altogether now: aaah.
Jonathan, I’m disappointed. If I’d have known you were going to be in the Peak District I’d have made you come for a visit. It is lovely here, despite your lack of inspiration: even on days like this when it’s slithing it down. The track up to our house is doing a good imitation of a river at the moment, and there is a pair of ducks swimming around on what’s usually the front lawn. I feel all Barbara Comyn (I think that’s how you spell her name).
Maybe next time, then? We actually had a pair of ducks who visited us for a few years down here – until our toothless old moggy died and we replaced her with a Maine Coon with a taste for wildfowl. I did see one of them around Easter this year, perched on our roof – which is not usually a tenable position if you possess webbed feet.
I’m sorry…I was searching for Japanese tentacle porn and somehow ended up here.
Easy mistake to make. I’m sure we’ve all done it at one time or other.
Nice of you to drop in anyway 🙂