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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!

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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
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