Where’s the time gone, eh? The last few weeks have been so hectic that I simply haven’t had a moment to sit down and record my incredibly interesting thoughts.
So what have I been up to? Well, exercising the little grey cells for a change, and, dragging my teaching skills out of retirement. There’s my Indian Art course, for starters, trotting along nicely on Thursday afternoons at Guildford Institute. It feels so good, sharing my passion with others. And isn’t technology wonderful? Whatever happened to the days of OHPs and whiteboards? I used to wonder how I managed before acetate sheets. Now I can’t imagine life without Power Point. Talking of which…
…next month I’m giving another talk about India (not architecture this time, more general). I popped along to the venue to check on the projector situation. I need to use Power Point, I told the organiser. Do you have the equipment? She looked at me with the bemused look of someone dealing with an imbecile. But of course we have, she replied. It’s over there. She pointed at an electric wall socket…
This week saw the first of the monthly Creative Writing sessions that I’ve been asked to take over. This time I simply sat in on the session and listened. The poor dears have been taking it in turns to chair the meetings since their previous teacher disappeared some time ago, and are crying out for a little TLC in the form of an organised routine. It will be a challenge – for them and for me. But (hopefully) rewarding!
On Tuesday, we, the Golden Girls, were booked to give a talk about Goldenford Publishers in Staines. One of our number was struck down with that nasty virus that’s doing the rounds, so the two of us remaining had to improvise and absorb the missing talk into our own talks. Undaunted we spouted forth, and (though I say so myself) it was jolly good.
Saturday brought the first of our Goldenford Festival workshops, this one in Leatherhead as part of the Mole Valley Arts Festival. The subject was ‘Using the five senses in Creative Writing’. Our long-suffering participants were required to wax lyrical about such items as a pink sock and nail varnish, surrender their ears to the Dance of the Seven Veils, plunge their hands into a black bag containing jelly, sniff at TCP-contaminated perfumes and bravely gulp down a small glass of neat Campari. The last (taste) was one of my two contributions, the Seven Veils (sound) being the other (now how did you guess?)
In self-defence of inflicting Campari torture on the participants, I should clarify that I did give them the choice of an alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink. Stone the crows but they all opted for alcoholic, no doubt expecting a large glass of Chateau Rothchild 1974 instead of a thimbleful of a doppelgaenger for cough mixture. They were fantastically sporting about it all, didn’t even pull a face.
All in all they produced some really inventive and imaginative writing. Next Saturday will be more of the same (but different, if you get my meaning) at the Guildford Institute as part of the Guildford Book Festival. This time I’ll be in charge of touch and vision.
Just as I was getting depressed, thinking winter is just around the corner, not only does the sun grace us with an Indian summer, but my indoor and conservatory plants decide to put on an incredible show to cheer me up. Here are a few of them:
The amaryllis my kind Dutch friends brought when they visited in September. Colour incredible.
My cymbidium orchid which has never let me down yet (unlike the phaleonopses, which are notoriously temperamental.)