Autumn is such a beautiful season. I love it!
Sunday 18 October 2009
Thursday 15 October 2009
Red and Yellow
Went into the main Post Office recently and wasn't sure whether I was in the supermarket queue for the deli-counter or an airport. Most of the shelves for goods on sale had gone and there were groups of "love seats" - back to back spirals of seating - to either side of the doorway. In the centre of all this, a machine which issued tickets to notify you of your place in the queue for service. Hmm...
I have also been noticing that postmen, even on colder days, are wearing shorts. Is this simply a macho trend or is the P.O. too poor to afford the cloth for full-length trousers? No wonder we're heading towards a postal strike. Well, at least post-boxes and postal vans are still red.
Meanwhile everywhere you go in my city you are having to skirt round barriers and huge holes down which are yellow-coated gas engineers uncoiling great lengths of yellow plastic pipe.
And blithely uncaring of all this the yellowed autumn leaves are drifting cheerfully down and I'm busy scuffing my feet in them!
I have also been noticing that postmen, even on colder days, are wearing shorts. Is this simply a macho trend or is the P.O. too poor to afford the cloth for full-length trousers? No wonder we're heading towards a postal strike. Well, at least post-boxes and postal vans are still red.
Meanwhile everywhere you go in my city you are having to skirt round barriers and huge holes down which are yellow-coated gas engineers uncoiling great lengths of yellow plastic pipe.
And blithely uncaring of all this the yellowed autumn leaves are drifting cheerfully down and I'm busy scuffing my feet in them!
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Havant and Ilkley
In the recent month I have had two very happy successes: first prize in the Havant Literary Festival poetry competition, and a Commended in the Ilkley Literary Festival.
The Havant was judged by Anne Stewart who herself was a recent winner of the Bridport, and the Ilkley was judged by Ian Duhig. In both cases I managed, by the kind aid of good friends, to get to the awards ceremony. At Havant we were all surprised to find that we would not be expected to read our winning poems. We just hopped up onto the podium when our names were called, were given our cheques, and off we went.
On the other hand at Ilkley we were thoroughly rehearsed beforehand both in reading our poems and in the running order.Poor Ian had to go a couple of times through his long and thorough judge's report until he was probably wishing he'd never written it! But it went well, with quite a decent sized audience present to hear the poems. Afterwards there were readings from Ian Duhig and Debjani Chatterjee, and sadly I couldn't stay for them: a long drive home, and as our own Literature Festival in Chester begins this week I have a lot to do and could not afford a late night.
And, you know, I felt absolutely terrible: I have never wanted to be one of those poets who come to a reading, get up to read their own stuff and then promptly leave without listening to others. But on this occasion I had to do this. And still two days later I cannot forgive myself for this discourteousy ....
But if you are a reader of this blog, then please understand I very rarely behave like this!
Ilkley Festival will be posting the winning poems on their festival website eventually. So you can have a look there soon if you would like to see the poem/poems in question; Havant, I believe, might do that though no-one is sure...But Havant is only in its second year of running a festival and there is a lot to learn about these matters. I was very amused, and also impressed, to hear them say in their opening speeches that "Havant comes before Hay-on-Wye in the alphabet..." So look out, Hay-on Wye, you have a contender for your accustomed literary eminence ! I have a lot of respect for bravado like this because without bravado nothing gets achieved. And who knows...?
The Havant was judged by Anne Stewart who herself was a recent winner of the Bridport, and the Ilkley was judged by Ian Duhig. In both cases I managed, by the kind aid of good friends, to get to the awards ceremony. At Havant we were all surprised to find that we would not be expected to read our winning poems. We just hopped up onto the podium when our names were called, were given our cheques, and off we went.
On the other hand at Ilkley we were thoroughly rehearsed beforehand both in reading our poems and in the running order.Poor Ian had to go a couple of times through his long and thorough judge's report until he was probably wishing he'd never written it! But it went well, with quite a decent sized audience present to hear the poems. Afterwards there were readings from Ian Duhig and Debjani Chatterjee, and sadly I couldn't stay for them: a long drive home, and as our own Literature Festival in Chester begins this week I have a lot to do and could not afford a late night.
And, you know, I felt absolutely terrible: I have never wanted to be one of those poets who come to a reading, get up to read their own stuff and then promptly leave without listening to others. But on this occasion I had to do this. And still two days later I cannot forgive myself for this discourteousy ....
But if you are a reader of this blog, then please understand I very rarely behave like this!
Ilkley Festival will be posting the winning poems on their festival website eventually. So you can have a look there soon if you would like to see the poem/poems in question; Havant, I believe, might do that though no-one is sure...But Havant is only in its second year of running a festival and there is a lot to learn about these matters. I was very amused, and also impressed, to hear them say in their opening speeches that "Havant comes before Hay-on-Wye in the alphabet..." So look out, Hay-on Wye, you have a contender for your accustomed literary eminence ! I have a lot of respect for bravado like this because without bravado nothing gets achieved. And who knows...?
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