Book Title Poetry

You know when you happen to come across something on the interwebulator but can't for the life of you remember how on earth you got there? Well, that happened to me a week or 2 ago and I happened to fall upon (not literally I hasten to add) Janet Reid, Literary Agent.

She was running a little contest where you had to create a poem from the titles of books and then take a photo of the books you'd used. It really caught my attention and I quite literally dropped what I was doing and started scouring the shelves of my library (er, couple of book shelves actually).

Here is my entry which, I thought was rather good until I saw the quality of the other entrants:

A long way down

the road of love

more tales of the city

were burning bright.

A spot of bother

saw them

behaving badly.

One day

with nails sharpened

came the slap

Safe retreat with friends, lovers and chocolate

Just like the way we wore

the comfort of strangers

like a nice jumper.

Happy now

dead sexy

in the blue afternoon

women in love

are starting over.

There were something like 200 entrants so I'm not upset that I didn't win :-(

The winner's poem was amazing and you can look through all the entries and the winning poem on Janet Reid's blog.

Dear So and So - The Bad Tempered Edition

Dear Madam,

Because yes, you were a madam, an ignorant obnoxious madam who rightly deserved a very pointed "WELL EXCUSE ME!" when you took up the whole pavement and just stood there glaring at us when we, the stroppy woman pushing a pram, dragging a dog, nagging a boy and ignoring stroppy pre-schooler, were trying to maneuver along the narrow pavements. Funnily enough, you are not more important, more worthy or more superior than me, and do not own the rights to the pavement.

Yours, The stressy woman pushing a pram, dragging a dog, nagging a boy and ignoring stroppy pre-schooler.



Dear Sir,

You know when you saw the Princess having a strop in the middle of town, and you said "Oh, I'm sure it's not that bad.", and I grunted a bit, and then you said "Don't worry. Mummy will buy you some sweets." Well, as much as you thought your actions were well-meaning, they were not helpful.

Yours, The stressy woman pushing a pram, dragging a dog, nagging a boy and ignoring stroppy pre-schooler.



Dear Madam (2),

I know my pram was blocking the shop door. I know I was distracted by a rather lovely biscuit tin in the baking shop. I know it is normally customery to move out of the way if someone says 'Excuse me.'. But do you think the way you said ' Excuse me' with a heavy emphasis on the 'ME' with your hands thrown up in the air and a distinct air of huffiness is polite? No, me neither.

Yours, The woman who sarcastically said "Oh I am soooo sorry if I was in your way."



Dear Sir (2),

You know you work in a charity shop, where customers come to spend their money, so that the charity that you volunteer for can earn vital funds to support further research, fund hospices and pay nurses to care for the sick. Well, do you think that it was ever so slightly rude to push me out of the way and perhaps counterintuitive to rearrange the book shelves as I browsed them with the absolute intention of spending money in your charity shop? Just wondered.

Yours, The woman who muttered something about customer service as she huffed out of the shop.



Dear Charity Shop Volunteer,

No not the rude one who thinks alphabetising the book shelves is more important than selling books. The lovely one, in the next charity shop, who was so chatty and grateful for the donated childrens clothes. Thank you for restoring my faith in 'giving'.

Yours, The woman who smiled and complimented your customer service and will henceforth donate all her childrens cast offs to your charity.




Dear All,

I promise to try to be more patient and understanding and less bad tempered, if you do.

Yours, Me.




For more Dear So and So letters get over to 3 Bedroom Bungalow where she collects them :-)

The Gallery - Home

In our kitchen there is a wall. 

On that wall are the pencil marks that show the passage of time and the how quickly the children are growing. I can never decorate that bit of the kitchen, which shows bad planning on my part, but it's okay because it is hidden behind the door!

It is also the wall of 'art'. This seems to grow on a daily basis as another masterpiece is created. I will have to rotate these creations or my home will be completely decorated by the children. But I love the colours and life that they bring to our house.

Without these marks and personal touches our house would never be a home, and trust me, it is well lived in ;-)

Now go over to Sticky Fingers to see other entries in this weeks Gallery.

Tick Tock - Writing Workshop

Time is running out.

Out of what?

Out of me.

It starts too slow.

And before you know

It's running too quick

so nothing sticks.

Slipping away

through my fingers.

I take pictures

to hold time still.

So when I sit

I can look and see

what passed me by

today.

This was written for the Sleep Is For The Weak Writing Workshop from the prompt Time.

Join in or stop a while to read the other contributions.

Silent Sunday

Have a flutter round twitter and search #silentsunday for more marvellous pictures.

One picture, no words innit.

How to dodge a falling satellite

Feeling slightly nervous sat here actually.

Apparently there is a 6 tonne satellite going to crash into earth early this evening (UK time).

Image from BBC.co.uk


Fortunately it will break up into smaller pieces but the largest is the weight of an average man. So that's alright then. It is expected that the debris will cover an area of up to 300 miles wide and will be travelling at about 240mph when it hits. Ouch!

What are the chances of being hit by 1 of these pieces? Guess anyone? 1 in 21 trillion. The odds are better on winning the Euromillions lottery so I've bought a ticket. Tomorrow, I will either be celebrating big style, nursing a bump to the head, or carrying on as normal and washing my windows.

Helpfully the advice from the UK Space Agency is if you spend all day looking at the sky, you are more likely to bump into something and hurt yourself that way than be hit by falling debris. And don't bother trying to get out of range (head for Scotland). You are more likely to have an accident travelling than be hit by debris.

In summary, the way to avoid being hit by a falling satellite is to stay indoors, just in case you are the 1 in 21 trillionth person.

Good luck everyone!

Room by Emma Donoghue - Review

 As a parent you might pick up this book, read the blurb and think 'Maybe a bit too sinister and likely to render me a quivering useless wreck'.

Yes I know, not exactly a glowing review opening sentence but realistically, who would want to read about a teenage girl being kidnapped, held captive for years, being repeatedly raped, conceiving, giving birth in an outbuilding and bringing up a child in one single room? Well me apparently!

The concept of this book I thought was brilliant, very current and definitely appealing to a dark side of my personality. I was intrigued to see how the author would develop a plot, create narative and keep me hooked when there are essentially 2 characters and a single room. But she did.

The book is narrated by the son of the captive girl who describes his adventures and explores his world in a wonderfully innocent and beautiful way. He tells us about his world in such depth and colour that you would not possibly believe that it is just one room. But to him that is all he has ever known. No windows, just one door through which the night man comes and brings food and sunday treats and takes away rubbish. He has never seen the night man because when he comes he must hide in the wardrobe and wait there until Mama says he can come out.

As he grows, so does his curiosity and so does his Mama's anguish and depression. Yet there is hope. There is another world outside the room.

On occasion, the boys voice wasn't quite right and didn't fit a 5 year old. He used some very advanced vocabulary mixed with some niave words that just jarred for me.  But having said that, he isn't a normal 5 year old is he? And I much preferred the first half of the book to the second half, finding that it was just too offhand and not really believable. I did lose interest towards the end but the writing was excellent and a novel I would recommend, if only for the first half of the book!

I read this book as part of Dulwich Divorcee's Book Club! I look forward to the next interesting read!