Skip to main content

Six thankful things

Once again another month is screeching into the distance before I have had a chance to gather my thoughts for anything more than family updates.  So this is just a quick one: six things I'm thankful for this month. 

1. More writing contacts made, through volunteering to write about FIGMENT Derby - an art festival with the emphasis on participation.  I wrote a post about it for Love Derby, and another one for the Silk Mill Museum (not up yet but hopefully will be soon).  It was pretty interesting writing about the same event twice, for different audiences.

Adding to the beanstalk at FIGMENT


2. Runner beans from the garden.  This is the closest I have come yet to my ambition to have a glut; we are not quite overwhelmed but certainly have a steady supply!



3. Theo growing up.  He is now basically out of nappies (not 100% potty trained but I'll spare you the details) and has graduated to a big bed.  Or at least he will do as soon as the mattress arrives next week; for now he is in the cot with one side taken off.

And he can ride a motorbike...

 4. The life of our neighbour Mr Stokes, who died last week aged 94.  He was a keen gardener till the last.  This squash was from his garden; eating it seemed a fitting way to remember him with thanks.



5. Blackberries starting to appear.  We went picking yesterday and got a reasonable haul.  I froze 500g and made the rest into a delicious crumble.



6. And finally, it's almost the end of the school holidays!  Actually, it's been a good five weeks.  The weather has been great, with only a few days of rain, and we've done some fun things, with more planned for the final week.  I always find myself looking forward to getting back into routine, though.

We enjoyed ourselves!

Labels:

Comments

John Evens said…
I'll be honest, I found your Love Derby article difficult to read, which is unusual. It didn't flow for me. I couldn't tell where any paragraph was going to go. Maybe I'm too American these days or just not a part of the target demographic for this piece. But since you seem to be giving this writing thing a go, I thought I'd give you some blunt feedback. Have you tried Hemingway Editor? I mean, I love a complex sentence. If everything is easy to read you risk being boring. I just needed a bit of balance. Maybe have some creatively worded descriptions up-front to get my attention but then dumb it down to convey the actual information of what you did. Don't mix literature and news. Have both elements but keep them separate. I have no idea if this is good advice or not. I just found it taxing to have to enjoy the imagery and extract meaning from the same sentences.
30 August 2016 at 20:23
Martha said…
Thanks for the feedback! Reading it again, I think I see what you mean; perhaps I went a bit over the top with description at the cost of just explaining what it was. Maybe because I knew what had happened it was hard to read it from the point of view of no knowledge of the event. Anyway, I appreciate the honesty and I'll bear it in mind for the future!
5 September 2016 at 08:29
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One hundred churches

About the middle of January, I was walking to school one afternoon when it occurred to me that I must have visited quite a few churches on my explorations. I started counting them. But I quickly ran out of fingers, so when I got home I plotted them on Google Maps. Not only was the number much higher than I was expecting, it was also tantalisingly close to one hundred. Only a few dozen to go. So of course, every walk since then has had to include at least one church! Last Monday I visited my hundredth church: St John the Baptist, Dethick. It was a beautiful little 13-century building with an unusual tower - I was glad it had claimed the 100 spot. I haven't been inside every church. Sometimes they were locked; sometimes I was in a hurry and didn't try the door. St Leonard's Church in Alton had bellringers practicing, and I almost interrupted a funeral when I stuck my head through the door of St Mary's, Marston-on-Dove. A few, such as St Oswald's, Ashbourne, and St Wys...
Post a Comment
Read more

Easter holidays 2025

It felt like a busy Easter holiday this year - a nice mixture of household jobs, time in the sunshine, and family celebrations. Here are a few highlights. Birthday cake Graham's mum had a big birthday, so Graham and his sister secretly organised a few friends to come to dinner with her. She was surprised - and pleased! - when a small family meal at the pub turned out to include fifteen extra people. Theo baked and decorated this amazing cake all by himself. My sole involvement was cutting it up at the end. The event was a big success. thanks to my mum for the photo Days out We had a family day out at Peak Wildlife Park , in the Staffordshire countryside. It's been a few years since we last went; the penguins and lemurs were familiar, but the zoo has acquired a couple of polar bears. Believe it or not, these two are only half-grown. They're about three years old. playfighting polar bears lemurs penguins otters   I persuaded Toby and Theo to come to a garden with me with the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Derwent Valley Heritage Way: Steep drops ahead

It's been a long time since I fitted that much up and down into an eight-mile walk! 740m of steep climbs and steps. My legs were not very happy with me the next day. Between Matlock and Cromford, the Derwent River runs through a deep valley, with Matlock Bath - a landlocked town which pretends to be a seaside resort - down at the bottom. The ridge of high ground used to run all the way round to Scarthin Rock, cutting off Cromford from the rest of the valley, until somebody blasted a hole through it to build the A6. Matlock Bath: pavilion and amusement park I started in Cromford and climbed over the ridge at Harp Edge, then followed a path along through the woods, with the ground dropping sharply away to my right. There were a few small caves among the trees. At Upperwood someone had thoughtfully provided a bench. I wasn't in need of a rest just yet, though. In fact, I was feeling so bouncy that I went down an entirely unnecessary flight of steps, instead of staying on the reaso...
Post a Comment
Read more