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JaneShuff posted an update 6 years, 3 months ago
Is anyone else watching Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema on BBC 4 and on IPlayer? I am really enjoying it and finding it quite interesting on structure and genre. Well worth a watch IMO. Of course it may have been on for ages and I am very behind the times!
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Only a very small proportion of my payments are in cash these days and I think the last cheque I wrote was about 3 years ago. I have two pound coins in my pocket and I think that’s all the cash I’ve had for about a month. These are unusual times in that we are trying to minimise the shopping we do in person, i.e. I’m unlikely to nip out to the…[Read more]
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I had to hunt out our cheque book when confinement started as we’re having to do a lot of payments by cheque. I couldn’t even remember what colour it was.
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I’ve not written a cheque since October 2019. The one before that was written in April 2019. I haven’t handled cash since 31st March when the pharmacist called round with a prescription I had to pay for. Credit card points are building up nicely. Silver linings and all that.
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Amanda Berriman (Skylark) posted an update in the group
CoronaMo 6 years, 3 months agoHello *waves* How is everyone doing? So much for my intention to spend more time in the Den – it’s been two months!! Things went a bit hectic in Feb/March with a lot of time and energy going into researching/organising stuff for Peter’s ongoing recovery/physical health. Of course many of those plans have now been cancelled! But subsitute dates are…[Read more]
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Great to hear from you, @skylark! I’ve been wondering how you were managing with Peter with all appointments cancelled. Hope you have a good cycle out – I can imagine that big smile of his right now.
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It was a GREAT cycle (see FB post). We’re getting on fine – just muddling through as everyone else is. I’m not sure we’re that brilliant at the physio side of things but doing something is better than nothing. It’s great to have another exercise that he can do now though. Burn up some more energy!
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Lovely to hear your news @skylark. And so glad your bike ride was a success. Enjoy your family time!
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I saw the little clip on FB, and it looks utterly splendid! Especially wonderful to have right now I imagine!
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@raine It is! It’s been a bit of a worry the last month that his only exercise has been doing Wii sports in his standing frame and our unqualified attempts to mimick his physio sessions. I feel better knowing we can go out biking two or three times a week – a good cardio workout for him with the hills we have around here!
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@janeshuff Thanks! We are making the most of what we can of this strange time. Hope you are keeping well xx
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Amanda Berriman (Skylark) replied to the topic Dipping my toe back in in the forum Blogs 6 years, 3 months ago
Hi @johnalty it’s good to be back, though it would help if I came back and then didn’t disappear again for months! Sigh. I have good intentions and then life happens…
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Raine posted an update in the group
CoronaMo 6 years, 3 months agoAnyone got swallows back yet? Was looking for them today but no luck yet. Walk along the beach did turn up a white sea brick though (now called Beatrice, mini lugged it home), a bit of sea tile with the letter E on, and a perfect conch shell. Along with the usual sea glass & good painting stones. A moderately good haul which will all end up in one…[Read more]
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None at the palace yet. I checked yesterday.
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“sea glass” – such wonderful connotations.
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No swallows as yet but in the evening the beach (forbidden to humans) is full of birds congregating along the water line. It is getting light enough after supper to slip past the ‘interdit’ signs and watch them dart in and out of the little frothy waves or stand still on the sand and watch the sun set behind the islands.
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What a delightful picture you paint, Raine. No, I have not seen any swallows yet, but many other birds visit our garden, as we have countryside all around our home. We are a long way from the sea and beaches, but we do have terracotta bowls of such items as you describe in our home – many dating as far back as when we lived in Cyprus! Have a…[Read more]
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Looking out for swallows here. We only moved in in January, so not sure what the avian fauna are like, except there a rooks/ravens plucking twigs from trees and then flying off to build nests, and seagulls doing their squawking thing, and since we started putting food out the sparrows, tits and similar have been very enthusiastic, also the rats…[Read more]
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Yes @raine, What is a sea brick?
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😂 It’s a brick that’s been washed up by the sea so it’s all eroded and smooth. We get a fair few normal ones but a white one was special! Sea tiles are my fav – bits of broken and smoothed ceramic from all sorts of things. Old decorated plates are the best.
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Sounds lovely. I’ve never seen them though. Is there a reason why they wash up? Our beach, although lovely in every way, doesn’t get much washed up apart from bits of fishermen’s nets.
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JaneShuff replied to the topic March competition in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 3 months ago
Congratulations Raine. And thanks to everyone for their stories and the pleasure they gave me as well as John for the competition.
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Raine started the topic Monthly comp – April 2020 in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 3 months ago
Bit different this time in an attempt to find beauty in our (confined) surroundings – look around the room you are in & find the oldest item (not counting people!). Now tell us something about it. Why is it precious, why have you kept it so long, who owned it before you… whatever.
400 words. Hope it brings a little light. 🙂 -
Raine replied to the topic March competition in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 3 months ago
Thank-you so much John and everyone! I am delighted to have worried you all! I love how utterly different all our stories were, so well dones are due to the rest of you as well – each one was great. 🙂
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Athelstone replied to the topic March competition in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 3 months ago
Well done, Raine! Thanks for the comp, John.
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RichardB posted an update 6 years, 4 months ago
My elder son – 40 this November – is a bit of a free spirit and so is his missus. Just before Christmas they announced that they were going to give up their jobs, sell up (not that they actually owned a house) and go off globetrotting. They weren’t to know, but they didn’t exactly pick the best time for that, with the result that they are now…[Read more]
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I hope they are managing to make the most of it. My sister and brother in law were stranded in the Galapagos and it was no fun at all. They got flown to mainland Ecuador last week and should be on their way back to Canada today, all being well.
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His verdict on the situation was, ‘It could be worse.’ Knowing his attitude to life, not to mention his fondness for sardonic humour in e-mails, I rather doubt that they’re suffering unduly.
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Hilary replied to the topic My ride so far on the rollercoaster that is publishing in the forum Blogs 6 years, 4 months ago
I will say congratulations again on here, Laure! Absolutely brilliant. Well done!
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Hilary replied to the topic Good news this time – finally! in the forum Podium 6 years, 4 months ago
Just caught up with this. What brilliant news, Janette. So very, very pleased for you. Congratulations! Well done. (News like this always gives me hope!!!) x
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Raine posted an update in the group
CoronaMo 6 years, 4 months agoSubmitted a bunch of flash things to various magazines today AND did my monthly comp entry. For day 1 of homeschooling, I’m giving myself a gold star! 🙂
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Well done, Raine. I managed a newsletter and 1000 words of current wip but a) I don’f have children so I did not have home schooling to contend with and b) every one of those words felt like I extracted them with pliers!
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Gold star is well-deserved!
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Well done, Raine.
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That’s good going, Raine. Your comp entry is amazing.
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Aw fankyoo! I am pantsing everything (writing and life) at the moment, but it was a fun one to write. 🙂
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Pantsing seems to be working very well for you 🙂
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Raine replied to the topic March competition in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 4 months ago
(Bang on 400 words, I think)
Spring-Hollow Secret God Sleeping
Bring withy willows with you to weave a net on a night when the moon rides high. We will catch her face in the black mirror at our feet, dance her widdershins and threefold so that our withies weave moonlight all around.
Bring silver sage and silver blades and your hair hanging…[Read more]
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RichardB posted an update 6 years, 4 months ago
Okay, so there’s danger in crowds. So let’s escape from the crowded city and go to the seaside, or the country………where we will crowd out the beaches and the cafés and the ice-cream stands…
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That is what has happened here, Richard, and now the beaches and coastal paths are closed.
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WTF is so hard to understand about social distancing? It drives me bonkers to see how people behave. I have a very large personal space zone at the best of times, which is serving me well. I have become adept at managing my supermarket trolley to keep people at a distance.
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We’ve a very popular chippy in our harbour. It, and every other food place in the village had switched to take out/delivery only, which seemed doable for keeping them in business. But there were so many tourists day-tripping or holiday-house-visiting at the weekend that the chippy queue went down the street, meaning that they’ve had to take the…[Read more]
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This emergency really does seem to be bringing out the worst in people – and I don’t just mean stupidity. MrsB relayed to me today a news item she’d found on-line, to the effect that refuse collectors are reporting a 30% increase in food waste, some of it still in its packaging. To spell it out, this means that the bastard hoarders are not only…[Read more]
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Sandra posted an update in the group
CoronaMo 6 years, 4 months ago“What’s new, Sandra?”
Regrettably, nothing. 42K+ words into my current wip, taking some pains to streamline the process, not make the same mistakes, I realise I am still incapable of identifying, plotting the story until the characters tell me who they are and what is happening.
After a couple of weeks of floundering (necessary, it appears) I…[Read more] -
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JaneShuff posted an update in the group
CoronaMo 6 years, 4 months agoI saw you’d done it @raine but I can’t look until I have had a go myself. Well done on the new pantser WIP. Enjoy. You can always be like me and spend months trying to get it into some sort of shape afterwards.
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Ah – thank you! I completely forgot that was on. I shall head there forthwith.