A215 - Writing Practice 4.

Weekly challenge #4 was to look at the photograph on the left, of a New York park, and to write a poem, prose or piece of fiction which related to the image.

Being in poetic mode for no reason whatsoever, I fiddled and faddled for a while and came up with something. I'd spend longer on it but with a holiday coming up in the next couple of days there is little chance of being online for a week, so best to do it now while the iron is hot...wherever the iron is, and whoever has it this week.

ON A DAY LIKE THIS.

On a day like this,
It really helps that it’s raining.
If the Sun were here; (shining hard down on me),
I‘d not have made it to the park.
At a time like this,
And I’m really not complaining,
But if you were here; (with your loving arms around me),
I wish that…
I feel that…
I know with all my heart that,
My life wouldn’t be so very dark.

On a day like this,
Three years from the very moment,
That you were last here; (before fading from my sight),
As we sat right by this tree.
At a time like this,
Almost to the very moment,
That I held you close (to try to keep you from the light),
I wish that…
I feel that…
I know with all my heart that,
My love is walking next to me.

On a day like this,
I’m castaway upon an island.
And I want you here; (so I could gaze into your eyes),
As we languish by the sea.
In a world like ours,
Where I'd reach out for your hand,
And feel you draw so close, (before my vision fades and dies)
I’d wish that…
I’d feel that…
I’d know with all my heart that,
You will always live in me.

A215 Writing Practice - Fairy Story

This week's task was to recreate a traditional fairy story by giving it a different twist - such as, a change in genre, location or time. After trying a few different genres and discounting several, such as 1940's gangster novel, science fiction and adult literature (which reduced me to a giggling wreck for a good hour and nearly brought on a migraine), I settled for the genre of Crime Fiction - a la Arthur Conan Doyle - and my chosen tale was Snow White & The Seven Dwarves. :) I'd have liked more time on this to tidy it up, but other studying has kinda got in the way this week, so this is a version which I'd probably like to have another two or three edits at, but as it is already a day past the time it was due then I'm putting it out in its current form.

The Case Of The Poisoned Apple.

Laying in the centre of the room, before the wide, stone fireplace, the glass coffin became the main focus for the small audience. The only sound aside from the crackling logs came in the form of hushed whispers and the occasional sneeze; all eyes following the tall man as he walked to the fireplace, stooped low and took a long, thoughtful while to light his pipe.
“Come now, Mr Holmes,” said the only one of the assembled group to wear spectacles, “why exactly have you gathered us here? Some of us have work to get to, you know.”
Several grunts and nodding of several small heads accompanied the words, although the detective appeared lost in thought and temporarily oblivious to any form of complaint. For the umpteenth time that morning Holmes walked to the coffin and peered through the glass to the unmoving form beneath the lid.
“Mr Holmes!”
Finally, the detective blinked and looked in the direction of the rather grumpy owner of the voice.
“Mr Holmes, it’s quite clear who the culprit is here. I don’t see why we have to stand here like statues, while the evil Queen gets away. Why aren’t you arresting her instead of picking on us working folk?”
A low rumble of agreement rose up from the group.
“I…I do hope that this is not a case of height-ism, Mr Holmes” stuttered a red-faced bashful fellow, “I would really hate to complain to Scotland Yard. I w...would indeed.”
Further grumblings filled the room and once more all eyes were on Holmes as he relit his pipe from the fire, before turning to face the room.
“Gentlemen, I am of course most utterly grateful for the giving of your time to assemble here and I promise that I won’t detain you a moment more than absolutely necessary.”
Holmes’s words and kindly facial expression did little to appease the small crowd, but before the grumpy gentleman could begin a new verbal tirade, the detective raised his hands in a commanding manner as if conducting an orchestra. As one, the dwarves fell silent.
“I will concur,” said Holmes, “that initially it appears that there can be only one assailant in this crime. All fingers point to the Queen…perhaps, if I may suggest, a little too conveniently for my liking.”
Indignant gasps met Holmes’s ears, but his hands dipped quickly into his coat pocket, producing approximately one half of an apple, which he held aloft.
“According to your testimony, the victim was visited by an old woman who proceeded to persuade this poor, naïve, young lady to bite upon this very apple, thus rendering her unconscious and in a temporary medical state of comatose immobility.”
Holmes watched the slightly confused expressions with interest, smiling faintly to himself as he noted the one tiny face who was the exception.
“Before my arrival here, gentlemen, I took the liberty of analysing the available evidence. The Queen keeps only one type of poison, namely rat poison within the bounds of her castle. However, the poison contained within this apple is an extremely rare combination, formed from specific crystalline compounds…or as one trained in chemistry might label it, arsenic.”
The silence in the room was broken only by a loud sneeze and a faint hum of snoring.
“Naturally, the properties of arsenic would be unknown to most people…but then you’re not most people, are you, ‘Doc‘? Or should I say, Professor Heinrich Morgan from the University of Vienna and reported leader of the infamous ‘Little Red Handed’ gang…”
The face of the bespectacled dwarf turned bright red and began a faltering, stammered reply, before quickly falling into silence.
“…Wanted by Interpol for jewel thieving in Milan…kitten rustling in Sardinia…small-arms smuggling in Barcelona and now apparently contract-killing in the Enchanted Forest.”
The front door to the compact and bijou home suddenly burst open, revealing a large group of police officers, with Inspector Lestrade and Doctor Watson bringing up the rear.
“At last, Watson!” beamed Holmes, “I thought you’d never get here. Officers! If you would be so kind as to remove these gentlemen into the safety of Her Majesty’s custody.”
Holmes jabbed an accusing finger at each culprit, as each one was led away; small heads bowed in shame.
”Smiling Boy” Smith…”Grumpy Jack” McClane…Bob “Sleepy Byes” Brown…“Shy Stan” Sinclair…Hank “Handkerchief-Howling” Harris…and of course, last but not least, the notorious brains of the outfit, “Dopey Dan” Denton.”
Watson peered at the tiny, cross-eyed face and viewed the tongue peeking from the side of the mouth with disdain.
“Brains of the outfit? Are you sure, Holmes? The fellow seems positively doo-lalley to me.”
Holmes nodded and relit his pipe from the hearth.
“Absolutely sure, my dear Watson, Denton might play the absolute fool to perfection, but then the seven times winner of the ‘North Yorkshire Gurning Competition’ would naturally fool even the most ardent of observers.”
Denton’s face fell and relaxed back into a definite scowl.
“Damn you, copper! This would have been our last job before retirement. We’d bought a little place on the French Riviera…”
He sighed loudly as a burly officer escorted him from the room, leaving only Watson and Lestrade with a clearly gloating Holmes, who paced the hearth rug in triumphant style.
“Well…” said Lestrade, “another victory, Mr Holmes. Of all your recent cases this one dwarfs all the others by comparison.”
“Indeed,” nodded Watson, “No small feat at all, Lestrade. Will they get short sentences?”
“Perhaps, Doctor Watson, after all they were 'miner' offences.”
Ever the perfect professional, Holmes ignored the childish laughter, for his eyes had fallen on the front of a newspaper which lay upon a tiny coffee table; his lips moving as he read the main headline from ‘The Hunter‘s Bugle‘.
“’Opportunist Girl Snares Gullible Prince In Glass Slipper Plot‘….hmmm, come Watson, with all haste! There is no time to waste!”

A215 Writing Practice - Vignette.

This week's warm-up exercise asked for a vignette, using the phrase, 'We meet again' as our prompt.

Never having written a vignette before I consulted the all-knowing deity of Wikipedia, which states that a vignette is, "a short, impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment, or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, a setting and sometimes an object."

In for a penny... :)

We Meet Again.

I'm exactly where I want to be and falling heavily into selfish sleep, as if encased in the densest of iron armour. Deeper. Faster. Yes...just there. Now come the wine-sodden images I've recently come to enjoy and embrace; almost to depend upon.

Complete and utter nonsense. Well, of course they are, but as I bask in the sudden lightness of fluffy, ridiculous visions, fuelled by three bottles of finest Spanish red, I sense my distant, sleeping form unload an uneven smile and release a relaxed sigh into the pillow.

Chocolate horses, smiling at the window. That's a new one. I cheer wildly as an immaculately-dressed marching band waltzes up the path to serenade my house. Yes boys, louder please! Not a house any more, now a proud Gothic castle. Fine suits of armour bedeck my columned Great Hall, where medieval minstrels perform from their purpose-built gallery and Georgina Johnson from 'Human Resources' is regaling an entranced audience with a belly dance which would make wizened kings weep joyously into their ale.

Before I can blink, I'm holding a steaming mug of tea and arguing with the seven foot tall Viking who's appeared just in front of me.

He wants to go to the opera. I prefer the ballet. Voices are understandably raised. Entire villages will soon be flattened and raised due solely to differences in creative expression, but there's no backing down now. I'm still yelling into his pitted face about inspiring pirouettes, plus the full technical wonder of the 'Pas de deux', when I sense subtle movement behind his right shoulder. Curious eyes life slowly from my opponent's wrinkled, bearded visage and fall instead onto the face of another. In a single heartbeat, Olaf's foul breath vanishes from my nostrils and my fantasy castle evaporates around me.

Eyes locked only on hers. I'm acutely aware of the overpowering stillness, yet the all-consuming knowledge that somewhere a cruel, celestial clock is counting down priceless moments.

Some clumsy words stumble from my lips.

"I...I've been thinking..."

"I know you have, darling. I've felt every thought. Every word."

It's her. I know it more that anything I've ever felt in my sixty-three years of awareness.

"Sara, I went to the garden yest..."

"I walked every step with you, sweetheart, and our sunflowers have never looked more beautiful. But, you mustn't cry there. Not any more."

"It...it's not..."

"It's not a question of fair, my love. It is what it is. It's simply how things are meant to be."

A dull, heavy pain rolls through my chest and I sense that time will soon release itself from whatever temporary, delicious spell that has it caged.

"I..."

"I love you too, my darling Peter, and always will. Remember this, here and now. Remember us. Hold these moments as tightly as you can manage and draw whatever strength you need from them. From us. No matter what your mind tells you."

I smile deep into her eyes as our fingers meet, causing spiralling sparks of shared sensations to momentarily dance freely around us; memories finely crafted from over thirty-three years of blissful companionship. my best friend in the universe. Always.

"I promise, Sara. I'll remember."

For a glorious, luxurious second and three quarters, I hold her entire face to my memory, until her ever-loving smile is the very last image to fade from my sight and I find myself sat upright in bed; my arms locked around my torso in a protective, healing hug.

Dear God, my soul had missed that smile.

Genealogy, A173 and those darn Milsoms.

It started with an Open University course at the end of 2009 in Family History. Well, actually, not strictly true, it began around 2006 with my decision to take the first step towards building my family tree.

In truth, the first sparks of wanting to uncover my past heritage began in my teens. A relative had 'so-say' tracked down everyone possible on our family tree; filling many heads with romantic tales of Irish links, treasure boats and probably a pirate or three thrown in for good measure.

My mother had always told me of strong Irish roots with her side of the family and thus I was keen to see the proof for myself. So were others. Of course, time moved on, the relative stayed elusive and, despite promises to show all to various excited family members, nothing physical ever materialised.

By 2006, my mother was in poor mental and physical decline. Spurred on by the enthralling BBC programme, 'Who Do You Think You Are?', I took the first daunting steps towards building my tree, starting with only the six names that I knew for sure; parents and grandparents.

Armed with the power of the Internet and grim determination, I soon found interesting websites such as Roots.UK., Genes Reunited and Ancestry.co.uk.

Slowly, piece by piece, entire family lines were revealed; like slowly peeling layers of an onion. My mother's side came quickly. She remembered a few names and this helped greatly...soon a great-grandfather and grandmother appeared...then their parents...then their grandparents. Within a short space of time some lines had retreated back to the early 1800's. Learning was a steep, but joyful curve and the help available on websites by some very patient people was invaluable. Soon, I could find my way around an official census report, or learn how to trace a birth, marriage or death record.

Long nights of trawling through endless records until the eyes start screaming are tempered by the occasional discovery, accompanied by whooping and dancing around one's chair as the Sun rises outside. Gradually, a picture evolves around the skeleton of the family tree, which allows the real reason behind all those hours of research; the chance to understand more about our ancestors. Not just their names, or data, but WHO they were, WHERE they lived and most importantly, HOW they lived. What kind of daily lives did they have. What were their greatest assets and fears in life?

By 2009, I had the bulk of my family tree in place, aside from some notorious dead-ends, mostly on my father's side; the Milsoms (paternal grandfather) and the Nichols (paternal grandmother). The very nature of research leads to an understanding of history, both local and national.

To help with the who's, how's, what's where's and why's, I opted to take an Open University course, A173 - Family History, as part of my degree studies. This allowed a lot more insight into life in the Victorian era and was quite eye-opening, especially compared to the myth of strict morals and practices associated with that period of British history.

Simple truth: debauchery and naughtiness were just as rife as today, the Victorians were just better at hiding it.

The Milsoms remained elusive for a good two years. The discovery of a Last Will and Testament for my great-grandfather, while looking through an old chest of drawers, allowed me the information of his year of death. From that, in true detective stylie, and whilst wearing my finest deerstalker hat, I was able to find his death record, work out his year of birth and then track him down on official birth records in 1867.

As any 'Milsom' will know, our surnames are rarely, if ever, spelt correctly. There are Facebook groups and websites dedicated simply to this fact. Therefore, I checked the most common misspelling, 'Milson', and hey presto, one recently discovered great-grandfather.

It took another 6 months and the assistance of a distant relative in Canada, before I could track the elusive Milsoms back any good length, but I was recently able to find my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Charles Melsom, born c.1735.

The Nichols proved even more elusive than the Milsoms and I was only able to finally track them down about a month ago. Finally, after a good five years, I could take every family back past my grandparents and start observing the trail to the past.

This, essentially, is why I adore genealogy. It gives us an idea of our roots, not only in terms of physical locations and personal, family and physical traits, but occupations and lifestyle. Personal stories uncover and make a solitary name on the family tree stand out in unique, individual ways. Only then can we start to get a true glimpse of what kind of people our ancestors really were, what kind of lives they led and also how we fit into the vast melting pot that goes to make up our own family.

Oh, for a time machine.

Pictures from top: Grandparents, Clifford William Edward Knowland (1898 - 1959) & Elsie Gwendoline Sale (1897 - 1946) on their wedding day, Bristol, 1923...Grandmother, Emily Marian Nichols (1895 - 1980) and 2 year old me, taken Bristol, c.1965...Grandmother Elsie Sale as a child, c. 1900...Mother, Mary Caroline Knowland, (1924 - 2009), taken around 1927...A group of Knowlands on a family day out to Cheddar, Somerset, 1937, including my mother, grandparents and great-grandparents.

Weekly Writing Challenge

A fun exercise to sharpen the writing brian...erm brain...and prepare for the forthcoming Level 2 Open University course, starting in October 2011.

Week 1: Write a poem, 40 lines or less, on the subject of brutality.

Cheryl Hunt has shoes made by Jimmy Choo in L.A.,

She says they're worth at least a few thousand pounds.

John Morris has headphones made from gold and silver,

Reproducing the best 3D, sweet, sensual sounds.

Now...while I'm the last to moan, or whinge, or whine,

About crap shoes from Matalan for £9.99,

You can't deny the true, virtual reality,

That, quite simply Mother; this is sheer brutality.

Tommy Chang flew first-class from London to Barbados,

And told everyone he got very drunk on champagne.

Emma Robbins has huge stables, with fifteen horses,

Plus a pony she once let me sit on, in the rain.

Now...while I'm the last in my class who seeks to impress,

Three weeks in Barbados beats a weekend in Skegness.

I'll e-mail UNICEF to stop this insanity,

Unless you agree to end this sheer brutality.

Editorial.

Because I am daft and have totally forgotten how to edit existing posts, I just wanted to state that the two previous posts were written some time ago, but not as yet put on here. This could be because my life has been so hectic and busy, what with flying all over the world being a superhero and spy, that I haven't got around for it because I've been foiling diamond thieves in Casablanca and thwarting Godzilla off the coast of Brighton.

Alternatively, it could be because I forgot my password to get onto this site...and maybe even forgot the name of the site altogether. The fact that it took a good hour to remember how to publish a document may also have entered the equation...although I like to think that I was just too busy fighting crime and the many evils that pervade our wonderful world...and not just a bit thick when it comes to remembering things.

'Study' is from notes made in August 2009, while 'T189' was written at the end of January, 2010.

T189

My first course with the Open University. I knew that I wanted to aim for creative and artistic subjects and chose T189 - Digital Photography, because although I had been involved with photography for some years, my knowledge of digital photography was practically zero.

I'm so glad I started with this particular course. There were no tutors (which threw a lot of people), only feedback from other people on the course. As there were well over a thousand people on the course (I think closer to two thousand plus), it meant that feedback varied a great deal, from the upbeat, positive type to the totally ridiculous superior or sarcastic type - thankfully not too many of those, and the ones that tried quickly got shot down in flames.

It gave me a chance to reunite with photography and also buy my first digital SLR camera. Over time - and with incredible patience concerning the fiddly software of Photoshop - it all started to come together.

Having been trained to work in darkrooms with lots of fiddly accessories, plus the over-riding fear of allowing any chink of light into the photographic film, the whole digital process was somewhat of an eye-opener.

Creatively, it's a bit of a dilemma.

On one hand, there are seemingly endless options on how to edit an individual photograph; in essence there appears to be little that one cannot achieve with a good standard photo-editing software pack.

Which raises point #2; namely, at which particular point in the editing does your image stop being photographic and become art?

As a purist (old fashioned fogey) I found this concept a little difficult to comprehend at first. I thought back to my ancient photography teacher at college in 1980 and wondered what he would make of this new-fangled malarky. Endless essays on the early inventive minds that brought photography into being, like Fox Talbot and innovators such as Ansel Adams. Then I remembered that Adams had been a major creative

force in the early part of the century, producing essentially hi-definition images in the darkroom in the 1920's. If it was good enough for Ansel, it should be fine for me.

The atmosphere on the course was generally positive and encouraging. New friends were quickly forged and I was lucky that our particular group tended to be supportive and fair in criticism.

Two exams were included in the course; firstly a technical multiple choice selection of 20 questions, concerning the physics and chemistry of photography and secondly the main exam, a portfolio of ten photographs with a small written piece about the technical aspects of your work.

As an incentive to study, the course was perfect. In order to get the work done one had to get off their asses and get out clicking. Mental barriers were broken down by encouraging the student to look at objects and opportunities in a free, or unusual fashion, in order to train the eye.

For example, an early task (There were two tasks weekly which weren't compulsory, but helped immensely for those that bothered to do them) was to get out and find shapes in nature/civilisation/anywhere that resembled letters of the alphabet. This trains the eye to start looking at objects outside its usual limitations and stereotypes and allows the creative mind to start seeing pictures and shapes where normally the eye wouldn't even bother to look.

As an introduction to university study I couldn't have chosen a better course. My creative mind creaked back open again; something which had not happened for far too long. The momentum of the learning and study took over and it was genuinely a shame when the course starting wounding to an end.

Good for confidence? You bet. All early fears and doubts subsided inside a short space of time, especially once I adopted my 'I don't give a shit, I'm gonna go for this' attitude, again which I had sorely missed for some time. It's the only way forward, I feel. If something is bothering or blocking your path then grab it by the balls and don't let go. Hardly a quote from Plato or Confucius I know, but at the end of the day, it works.