Creative Writing

I've signed up for a creative writing course at City University! First session is on Thursday. I'm really looking forward to it. I realise it's the first formal creative writing course I've ever done. It's important to keep the cobwebs off the old machinery, I feel.

In other breaking news, I volunteered to put stickyback plastic on textbooks for Mo's school (it's a very small poor private school), then happily Larry turned out to be surprisingly amenable to doing it for me, for the price of 20p per textbook. So winners all round!

Dog still waxes adorable.

Marmalade

Tis the season for Seville oranges and LSS has made vast quantities of marmalade. It looked really runny last night so he boiled and re-boiled it until he could stand it no more, poured it despairingly into sterilised jars and left it till morning. And lo! when we came downstairs in the morning, the runny orange stuff had set into the glowing amber sticky chunky peel-laden English breakfast comestible and I am having some on toast even as we speak, with a nice hot cup of tea.

And if anyone wants to know what they are getting for Christmas, birthdays, house-warming gifts, thank-you presents etc for the rest of the year, I'll give you a hint - it comes in a jar...

I May Be Watching Too Much Television

I'm contemplating getting a Kindle. By "contemplate" I mean that in about a year's time I might actually get round to buying one.

Watching Charles Hazlewood deconstructing Mozart's Symphony No.39 in E Flat.

Just finished watching Le Diner de Cons. I don't understand the French. I suppose it's supposed to be a farce a la Feydeau, but it never really fizzed dans ma humble opinion.

Also just finished watching Zen. Rome and Rufus Sewell in Italian tailoring. Someone at the BBC is smiling on us middle-aged ladies!

Sudoku

At last all that time wasted playing sudoku has paid off! We went to The Wandle today to try it out for Sunday lunch and won £20 off our bill for being the first ones today to complete their competition sudoku. Larry had the lamb shank and there was a big lovely juicy meaty bone left at the end, so we wrapped it up in the sports section of the Observer and took it home for the dog. She sat down in the middle of my campanula to eat it. I think - a la Yeats - she fancied a bit of crazy salad with her meat.

Not much else to report. Contemplated joining the Wodehouse Society, then thought I really haven't read enough Wodehouse to warrant it, so I settled for ordering his very first book from Amazon instead, The Pothunters. When I've read my way through his oeuvre, then I'll join.

Practised the Haydn and also the Mozart Vespers until my arms ached. Which didn't take long.

Have finished the Christmas cake. Started on the Christmas pudding.

Saturday

Breakfast at Cookies as usual. ECB for Mo, fried rice for Curly and chicken noodle soup for Larry. Then Mo off to badminton, while I prevailed upon Larry to take Curly to see Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Caper on the Sat morning £1 show at Cineworld. Halfway through she texted to say that the film was incredibly dull and demanded payment.

I walked the dog and went down to Homebase with LSS to put down a deposit. We're turning the 2nd bathroom, which no-one uses because the window doesn't shut properly and all the enamel has come off the bottom of the gigantic cast-iron Victorian bath which takes ages to fill up, into a shower-room and adding a loo. This means there will be 3 loos within the space of 3 sq m on the 1st floor and no loos anywhere else. Oh dear. Bought a white camellia.

Got into the garden for the first time since November to plant out my camellia and found the lawn liberally spattered with moss and tiny little turds. Stupid dog! Also found a snow-drop! And the winter-flowering jasmine that has been looking like nothing but depressed green fronds since last summer has suddenly come into its own!

Bought a copy of Rupert Everett's memoirs from the 2nd hand bookshop next to Earlsfield Station for £1. Had a long conversation with a New College undergraduate who called up to try to get me to donate some funds to the old college. Ha ha! I told him to call back in 10 years' time when I'm no longer paying school fees. Baked a cherry cake and ran through the Haydn Requiem that we are doing in choral society this term. Watched Waldemar Janusczak on the Baroque in Spain (we love BBC4!). Langoustine pasta and tinned peaches with evap milk for dinner. And so to bed.

What exciting lives we lead...

The Norman Conquest

Watching a show on iPlayer about the Normans. I love iPlayer! Oh, the perfidy and glamour of the Normans! Just like the French today, in fact.

30 minutes on the treadmill and rowing machine today.

Vast tracts of cottage pie for dinner.

Other thoughts: mobile phone for Larry's b'day; Mandarin lessons for Curly; novel revision; Montaigne; Brisbane floods; January sales; and so to bed.