January…ing

My top scoring Wordle. A disturbing pairing! 

January is coming to an end so I thought I'd add a post in the 'ing' form Christina and other bloggers use. Here’s what I’ve been doing.

Enjoying the company of Kate and who has spent January here. Not much enjoying getting up early,  making her packed lunch and driving her to the station. Just like doing the school run again.  Can’t believe I’m still making her lunch when she’s 22.  She has a busy schedule of lectures on her PGCE so don’t mind really.

Watching Kenneth Branagh’s film ‘Belfast’.  Kate has an independent study day today so we’ve booked to see this film about Branagh’s childhood in Northern Ireland. It appeals to me as I’m around the same age as Branagh,  though I grew up in rural NI.  A friend from my writing group who has seen the film described it as ‘sentimental’.  This probably means I will like it - she has more sophisticated tastes than me.  

Getting my hair cut in a new shorter style.  A version of a pixie cut so my hairdresser says. I was bored with my bob so I went for something more radical.  I suppose I could add a photo.  Might do later. 

Returning to teach my adult classes after the Christmas break.  I enjoy teaching the creative writing as it’s more interactive.  The literature class requires quite a lot of preparation.  We are studying ‘Star of the Sea’ by Joseph O’Connor, which is a brilliant book set at the time of the Great Irish Famine.  I have been finding out more about why the famine happened and how the policies of the British government at the time made the situation worse.  Another gap in my knowledge of the history of my own country filled. There’s a very good episode of Melvin Bragg’s ‘In Our Time’ on the famine. 

Attempting to learn Irish using Duolingo.  Even if all I can do is say ‘le do thoil’ (please) and ‘go raibh maith agat’ (thank you) correctly, I am making some progress.  It would be good to know the sounds made by consonant clusters so I can pronounce Irish names correctly.  

Completing Wordleevery day.  I’m enjoying this daily word puzzle which is now so popular that there was an item on the BBC news about it this week. I’ve been managing to guess the five letter word in three or four attempts and was very smug when I guessed it in two a few days ago.  Today wasn’t so good - it took me six attempts as I made a couple of silly mistakes.  

Feeling disappointed as the planned weekend away with my bookclub to Llandudno had to be cancelled because of the omnicrom virus surge. Although numbers had dropped, the rule of six which applied in Wales meant we wouldn’t be able to go out altogether.

Watching the sky in the morning now that dawn breaks two minutes earlier every day.  I set myself a writing exercise - write at least one sentence describing the view from my window every morning.  There were some beautiful skies earlier in the month. I’ve not written any this week as it has been mainly grey and cold. Here are a couple of morning sky views and some of my sentences. Can’t seem to change the font. 

5/1 

Clouds stacked in layers of grey, white and blue move steadily north west. For a minute the strip of blue expands only to be obscured again by a smoky grey pall.

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6/1 8 am

Small pink-edged clouds are rising in an icy blue sky behind stretching skeletons of winter trees. Black birds fly north.