Skeleton Architecture

Things change fast in the blogosphere. The blogs that are available, and the ones that catch my fancy come and go, so I thought it was about time I updated this post from last year, to tell you about five of my favourite blogs taken from my Bloglovin ' feed now. What are your favourites?  First up (just because it came up first in my Bloglovin' feed) is the Authonomy Blog from Harper Collins. I love The Quotidian pieces which offer quotes from writers, mainly on writing. They're inspirational, and just long enough to set the mind racing, without having to do someting about it straight away.  This quote from Neil Gaiman was there just the other day: "All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories." - Neil Gaiman Talking of Neil Gaiman, I am obsessed with him at the moment. I am delighted that he and Amanda Palmer are expecting a baby, and wonder what it must feel like to be such an incredible 'it' c...

Every year across Scotland, all children get a poem to learn. A poem in Scots dialect. A lot of the poems are by Burns, but not all of them. My Dad likes to see the kids doing their poems, so this post is for him. I've recorded them for you Dad. The big girl did great with her poem about a conceited frog coming to a sticky end, but didn't get through to the Cronies (when the reciters are judged by a panel of expert judges). The little girl did a great job reciting her poem in front of her class, but we don't know if she's gone through yet. And last of all here's the boy reciting his poem (this one is by Burns), which is undoubtedly very difficult. He's only had a few days to learn it, so he's done amazingly so far, and with extra work since this was filmed (I filmed it while the light was good), he now knows verses one and two, has nearly got three, and is very ropey on four. Fingers crossed he does alright tomorrow, but even if he does...

As I write this, I am snuggled up, safe and warm on my sofa, watching the snow falling out of my living room window. One of the benefits of being a blogger is that this is as far as my commute goes, although I usually work at the kitchen table, which is slightly further.  this morning's school run I do still have the joy of driving and walking around Largs in the snow for the school run, shopping, our various clubs, and my love of taking lots of photos, of course. I was impressed this morning by the care drivers were taking on the snowy roads, although I didn't attempt to park near Brisbane Primary, not after the horribly slippy experience of the last snows (dodging sliding cars outside a primary school is not my idea of fun). Snow is only one of the things which can cause massive travel disruption for Largs though; rain can cascade down the Haylie Brae, wind can make the coast roads impassible, and stop the ferry. It must be a nightmare for people who have to co...

I think I don't like poetry. In fact I'm pretty sure. What I like is a brick of a book with well rounded characters, who can take me on a journey with them. I find that for me poetry can be navel gazing, twee nonsense, so caught up in its clever cleverness that it drives me to distraction. But then again, I like lots of songs for their lyrics, and sometimes, just sometimes, I come across some poetry which just blows me away. I came across Iain Crichton Smith recently at my writing group. I live in Scotland, and the other members of the group were all saying that Smith is so much covered in Scottish English (and Gaelic) classes that people don't tend to notice the beauty of his poetry. I didn't go to school in Scotland. The poets I studied at school were people like Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Shelley. I don't recall ever coming across anything like this. That said, I'm not sure that as a teenager I would have noticed it. Perhaps you have to have some i...

I go to a writing group, which I love to do, because it pushes me out of my comfort zone. My comfort zone is a messy place, so it's best to get pushed out from time to time. I am definitely not comfortable just now. At our most recent writing group we had a great workshop on writing poems.  I was really into writing poems as a child, and especially as a teenager, but I don't do it now. Although I am pretty pleased with my poem on Google+  which I did for the writing group last year. It's not that I don't like poetry, I just have so much other stuff that I want to read, and write, more. However, we have been set a competition, and I think it's good for me to attempt to do it, so I've been looking at the poems we were given to provide inspiration, and I've chosen Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. It's not that I like it. I have heard it too many times, recited unloved, thrown into the pot of a wedding, maybe even our wedding. I don't remember...

We decided long ago in 2006 that we were going to shake up the way our family worked. My husband, Kenny, would go for a job with a bigger salary, with the flexibility which has to go with that, and we would move our family as required. I would look after our children, and make sure that things at home worked, even as Kenny needed to work away for his job. It's worked out well for us. Kenny's doing well in his career, and our children are happy and secure, despite having moved a few times, but nothing is all good. Everyone has something they don't like about their work, and being a full time Mum, while being very rewarding, and completely worthwhile, can also be dull, repetitive, and frustrating. For me, I need to have another focus as well. When we first moved for Kenny's work my other focus was on the charitable organisation I was running (in Suffolk). b.a.b.i.e.s (Babies and Birthing in East Suffolk) was fun and so very useful, and gave me plenty of adult foc...

I wrote this post before... and then I decided to use the Blogger app again, and lost half of it. Last time I used the Blogger app, the same thing happened, but that time after a lot of digging, I was able to resurrect my work. This time it's gone.  And so's the Blogger app. UN-IN-STALL. And with the mood I'm in I'm not sure I can be bothered to do it again. Meh. Well, maybe. OK, I'll do it, but I'm going to change my favourites. Today, once again, I'm sharing my top 10 favourite fictional characters (favourites for various reasons, which I've explained below. I'm hoping you'll return the favour and share your ten favourite fictional characters. Here's mine, in no particular order: Izzy is on the left. This pic is taken from here 1. Izzy Reubens (from Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers). I love Izzy, I would still like to look like her. She is also gloriously tragic and broken, furious, and demonic. The Love...