Whiter shade of pale...

For some reason (I've given up trying to fathom why) from the minute I woke up this morning, I've been convinced today is Monday.  Even turned on the Radio expecting to hear Ken Bruce but was sadly disappointed.

Once again, I told Andrew this morning that I'd rather keep his photo than him, as he tucked into two croissants followed by two slices of French Toast and a biscuit :-)  No idea where he puts it!

After breakfast Vickie, Alan and Andrew headed off out and I heard him saying to Vickie that maybe they could have a KFC for lunch.  I don't know why he's not the size of a house!  lol

David went off to play golf with Keith and another friend (also called David) who's just taken golf up again after a long break.  This meant I had the house to myself all afternoon....bliss!  

The baby my friend Carole wants me to paint the bees for is due in October so I thought I better make a start on those.  She wants three paintings, two small and one larger, so I worked out three different compositions - a single bee, three bees around a little flower, and for the bigger painting a side-on bee about to land on a large flower.

I am painting them on two types of paper, watercolour paper and thick card.  Once they are finished I will decide which set I prefer.  Both types of paper have their merits but I am hoping there will be a clear favourite.

A little wander with the camera in the garden afterwards (bit of colour in extras) then back indoors to start clearing out the documents on my lap top.  It's nearing the end of it's life so my thoughts are turning to a replacement (if anyone can tell me the difference between a MacBook Pro and a MacBook Air, other than the price, I would appreciate it :-)  Also happy to take lap top recommendations.  It's mainly for photo editing not storage.

Made good progress with the deleting of files until I stumbled across a document titled Writing.  Oh heavens!  That proved a time stealer. 

Away back in the dim and distant past, pre-photogrpahy, pre-painting and drawing, my main creative outlet was writing (I have alluded to this previously :-).  

Since I was able to hold a pencil and form words I have written silly poems, short stories, longer stories, love poems, limericks and of course, my diaries.  I even started writing a novel when I was 12 about a girl called Jamie, with my best friend Agnes reading each chapter as I wrote it and demanding I write faster.  When the pressure became too much I stopped and she didn't speak to me for three days!  A compliment of sorts I suppose!  lol  I never did complete it.  

Anyway, I stumbled on this folder and spent the next two hours reading over stuff that I'd completely forgotten I had written!  The majority of it was written as part of the assignments for a Creative Writing course I did in 2008.  

Amongst the ok stuff were three short stories telling the same tale from three different perspectives, one about a couple trying to spice up their love life ,and a handful of poems that included a poem I wrote for my gran's 90th birthday.  Another one I wrote the day after she died and it basically just describes my last moments with her.  

I remember I was brushing my teeth the morning after she died, feeling such pent up emotion, when the words bubbled up inside me and I couldn't continue until I had written them down.  The physical act of writing the words on paper gave such a welcome release of emotion.  In fact looking at the majority of the writing in the file I would say the common thread running through it is emotion, which may explain why I found some of the creative writing assignments so difficult; there was no emotional connection to the subject.  Being given a story title or scenario and asked to create a story around it would seem to be the least successful approach for me given a terrible short story about going to a concert and one about fear.  They are so bad!  :-))  

There's always an exception to the rule and I did laugh at a couple of 50 word stories I wrote.  I remember Sandy the class tutor (sadly no longer with us) challenging us to write 50 word stories. That's impossible we all cried.  He assured us it wasn't, saying stories could be written in as little as six words, citing "Wedding dress for sale.  Never worn."  as proof.  And so we all came up with our own 50 word stories.  Three of us even got ours published on a 50-word story website.  

My delve into my writing past came to an abrupt halt when the lads arrived back from their adventures.  Another day at the coast (near Burntisland.) They returned full of the joys and bearing huge slices of carrot cake for everyone for after dinner.

This evening Alan and Andrew have watched Bohemian Rhapsody and Elf.  I am hoping the latter doesn't lead to the start of the Christmas songs!  We've had a reprieve for a few months.