Things to smile about

Although I've learned to appreciate the joy of a timely frown, I'm finding lots of things to smile about at the moment. 

On Sunday morning I had a sudden impulse to decorate my daughter's room. By 6 o'clock her magnolia walls were red and ivory, three pairs of my trousers were in the washing machine and I couldn't lift my right hand above shoulder level but I did every last bit of it myself. Smile.

The week before Christmas I got my Edge Hill staff parking permit. I'm going to be an intern, working on the 2011 Edge Hill Prize. The internship will involve some work in both the corporate marketing and English departments. I'm not being paid, but did I mention that I have a staff parking permit? Smile.

I found this miniature, framed, cross-stitch sampler which belonged to my grandmother. It's smaller than my little finger and I thought that it was lost, but it isn't. Smile.

My other grandmother bought this lovely chair, ostensibly for the whole family for Christmas, but largely because she was fed up of watching me hobble into her house each morning having spent the previous evening at the computer, sitting on a wooden dining room chair. Now I can sit comfortably. I can also swivel. Smile.

A little Christmas present from my sister. Smile.

Christmas slippers. With red reindeer on. Smile.

No-one likes a frowny face

When I was a little girl we used to sing a song. It went like this: 

If you chance to meet a frown, do not let it stay, 

quickly turn it upside down and smile the frown away. 

No-one likes a frowny face, change it for a smile. 

Make the world a better place by smiling all the while.

About five years ago someone told me that I smile too much. I was surprised - I didn't think there was such a thing as smiling too much, after all, no-one likes a frowny face. Since that time I've watched smiles carefully - other people's and my own.

I've learned that smiling is not necessarily an indication of happiness. I've also learned that 'frowny' faces are absolutely likeable and infinitely preferable to the disguise of an 'all the while' smile.

Two of my favourite 'frowny' faces: 

Word Soup: Resolutions

I'm reading at Word Soup on 20th January as part of my New Year Resolution to do more things that scare me - like reading my stories in front of strangers and making conversation with people I don't know. 

There's more information about the event here.

Melted.

                                                          So long, snow people.

Aging snow people

Following the incredible snowfall in Southport last week we made two snow people.

They've smiled out from our front garden at neighbors, visitors and the postman for the past seven days.










We thought that they would melt fairly quickly and end up like The Snowman as piles of hats, carrots and, in the case of our snow people, banana skins.

However, the snow people have refused to go quietly and are enjoying an extended old age. Stooped and shrinking, heads down, they are growing old together, but they are still smiling.

Writing Club Issue 3

Click on the magazine to view in full screen.

Open publication - Free publishing - More winter

Let it Snow!

Last night we had more snow than I've ever seen before. Every time I look out of the window it makes me smile.

Here's a link to more snowy pictures on the BBC Website.

Word Clouds

I've been messing about with word clouds today. It's been interesting to put several of my short stories into wordle and observe the repetition of themes and ideas over a varied selection of my writing.

Here is a word cloud of my story 'Just in Case':

Here's one of 'My Burglar':

Here's one of 'The Ice baby':

Messing about with word clouds is seriously addictive - next step is to learn how to display them on my blog properly!

Nativity: words and pictures.

It's been pretty much a year since I started this blog. Yesterday afternoon I found myself in the same position as a year ago when I watched a nativity play that I wasn't allowed to photograph or film (although I filmed and photographed in 2007 - see left). The fact that parents all over the country have been banned from recording their children's performances has received attention from the press this week in the Independent the Telegraph  and the  Daily Mail. The Mail article begins, 'Victory for common sense: Parents should be free to take pictures of their children's nativity play.' There was no such victory in the school that my children attend. I watched my daughter play a large part in what was her last nativity with mixed emotions: she was brilliant - she had memorised long passages of difficult words and had to step in at the last minute to take the part of a child who was ill - but I have no record of what was undoubtedly her most significant achievement of 2010.

Although 'Parents have been told they are free to photograph their children in school nativity plays and are urged to challenge teachers who tell them that it is forbidden,' (The Times) teachers are clearly not listening. As I challenged my daughter's head teacher yesterday, he informed me that a parent 'somewhere in the country' had contravened a photography ban this week and subsequently been removed from the school premises by the police: a cautionary tale to put camera-wielding mothers in their place.

I'll try to remember the way that my daughter spoke her lines, the way her face stretched itself around the long words, the way her hands clenched and unclenched themselves as she recited, the way she said 'extraordinary long time' instead of 'extraordinarily' which was one syllable too far - but ultimately I won't remember. Last year I took a notepad and a pencil to the nativity and tried to record it that way. But when I read the account back, it's just words; the words of a story that needs pictures too.

MA Graduation.

Yesterday I attended my MA Graduation. It was a simultaneously sad and happy occasion - I'm pleased to have completed the MA, but I enjoyed it so much, I was sad that it had to end.

Here's a picture of me in a silly hat standing next to Tanya Byron of 'Little Angels' and 'The House of Tiny Tearaways' (she's also Chancellor of Edge Hill University).