Testing the Equilibrium Theory…

The BBC Ten O’clock News on Wednesday 25.11.09

President Obama will vow to cut US carbon emissions by 17% by 2020, when he attends the climate summit in Copenhagen

Iraq war eve WMD doubt revealed

PM plays down 'Islamist' cash row

Banks win on overdraft fees case

Domestic Violence & Equality Training in schools

Coming up later……..The Wonder of Woollies-Woolworth’s story (can't wait...)

Police Watchdog report results of G20 summit

Public Order Policing report

Former High Court judge heads 'war crimes' inquiry

.....and finally.....

The Wonder of Woolies! (Yey!)

A year on and what is happening?…’WellWorths’ are doing ok!

....Phew thank goodness for that! Equilibrium restored successfully!! :-)

Beached

The whole extended family would go to the beach, Bigbury mostly, sometimes Challaborough or Bantham. 4 Uncles, 3 Aunts, 1 Nanny, Mum, 1 brother, a Step-dad, 9 kids, 2 dogs, several buckets, spades, thermos-flasks of sugary tea, limp cheese and tomato sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, Madeira cake and orange squash (already diluted and warm by the time we wanted to drink it) , all squished into 3-4 vehicles. Bigbury mostly, sometimes Challaborough or Bantham.

Treesie-Dawn

(time passes)

I love making footprints. I love looking at the traces of others. At a distance, dotted lines join up like dot-to-dot pictures, sketching out the journeys taken by mark-makers. The tide removes all traces, like the sideways swoosh of the magna-doodle (in my day an Etch-a-sketch) rubbing out the moment. The beach is wiped clean. A smooth surface replaces the ripples. The marriage between the sea and the shore creates a surface, a page, for new artists, new authors.

Teresa

I suppose the funeral was about as good as it could have been. People came, nice things were said about the deceased, who got buried with the minimum of fuss, and it didn’t rain. Eventually everyone went away; then I guess I was really able to think about everything that had happened and what it all meant, and also about what I was going to do next.

But I get ahead of myself. Things don’t really start with funerals – mostly, at least for the deceased, they end with them; although I suppose endings are also beginnings. My dad died last week – I think it was Tuesday – and it’s his funeral I’ve just finished attending. Do you attend funerals? Or participate in them? Witness them, even? Whatever, that’s where I was.

Actually the funeral confirmed why I don’t like my relatives, have never liked them. Perhaps they don’t like me; we’ve never shown any liking or affection for each other from the start. Maybe they were just leaving me alone because they thought I was upset – certainly made it easier to avoid them.

The start was really the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the second on the second of June 1950. I was three, and I wasn’t very happy.

This is the opening to my autobiography...

“Choose your rut carefully. You’ll be in it a long time.”

Do you know I have forgotten who said that to me originally; it doesn’t matter anymore, but it has stayed with me since my youth, to haunt me, to spur me on and to make me kick against it? You see, I don’t think life is to be lived in a rut: Life is an adventure. Life maybe so short and eternity so long but that energises rather than paralyses me. So the older I get the more I become someone in a hurry; to cram in as much as I can, to ensure that my life is not a rut but a freeway.

I admit I have been lucky, if you believe in luck. I have the freedom to choose while others are in no position to make choices. You may not choose your rut. It may choose you. It can choose you by accident of birth, by design, by folly or a combination of any of those. To make your own luck is only possible for those who are in a position to be able to do that..

Welcome to Narrative Spaces 2009/10

This is a space for you to use to post up interesting things about writing and storytelling, narrative theory, narrative sites and anything you have found that links these things to your practice, or to your interests. It is a space to share ideas when the 2 hour session has finished...so feel free to post up interesting articles, links, photographs and conversations.