November...ing

 

It’s not been a great month for us. Inspired by Christina ’s post, I’ll give you a flavour of my November. I’ve been:

Looking after husband who has injured his ankle after being pulled over by over-excited dog lunging at crow while he was picking up her ball;

Persuading him to contact medical professionals for advice on his ‘torn ligament’  rather than trust Dr Google;

Trying not to say I told you so when he eventually gave in, three whole weeks after the original injury,  and discovered he had a fracture when it was x-rayed;

Walking the darned dog on my own and trying to avoid any further injury;

Watching in horror as the lawn, now the location for ball chasing, is transformed into a muddy field;

Planting half dead looking bare-rooted strawberries and a rose called ‘Silas Marner;

 Hoping the garden will recover in the spring. 

On a more positive note I had some success with the NaNoWrite project which I signed up for. So I have been:

Writing around 1000 words a day of my ‘family saga’;

Reimagining real events using research, memories and things older relatives have told me;

Exploring the British Newspaper Archive which has given me access to old copies of The Mid Ulster Mail;

Using the details from the newspaper stories as inspiration for my writing;

Feeling like a granny when I joined the local NaNo online forum and encountered rather geeky young men in hoodies;

Accepting that ‘word sprints’ where you race others to write as many words as you can in a set time with no concern about quality are not for me;

Discovering that most of the local participants in this project are writing fantasy and other worlds;

Failing to reach the NaNo target 50000 words;

Feeling happy, nevertheless, that I have written 25000 words and have enjoyed the experience.