Being Me

This week, I have some pictures for you from my phone's camera. I am going to try to find links between them.  Okay, so let's start this photo-blog with this beauty. I don't know his name. I'll call him Horse because I'm original like that. I visit Horse regularly. He lives in a field 15 minutes' walk away from my house. When I say 15 minutes' walk, I'm the one who walks to Horse, not Horse to me. I plug in my earphones, select a radio programme, and say to my husband, 'Going up the road to see Horse.' Horse listens to any problems you have and gives wise, merciful looks. He is cheaper than any other therapist. He does not judge. And you can trust him not to gossip. All he asks in payment is that you stroke him and feed him clumps of grass, which I call a bargain. This is the bandstand in Leamington Spa's Pump Room Gardens, near my home, and it's currently being restored to its original loveliness by a company special...

This is a scene from a novel I hoped to get published. But I've moved on now and am writing another book which will be published in 2020. Watch this space! I really like the scene, though. So I thought I'd let you read it, rather than having it fester on my laptop.  Enjoy! It's very much based on my personal experience, and it's a scene that's played out in real life in many, many classrooms across the country. And perhaps the world.  Setting: a secondary school classroom, England. Friday afternoon.  Characters: an English teacher and her class The pupils, as they did every week at this time, drifted from all corners of the school, in spits and spots like a gradual, hesitant build-up of rain. They seemed weary, as did their end-of-the-week uniforms, which drooped and slouched on their bodies as if drained of life.   Indeed, some of their blazers had died and slidden off their bodies like thin corpses, hanging now from the ends ...