Write-Place

Here we are again on the last day of the year, looking back on the year past and forward to the next year. Some of us will be glad to see the end of 2016 and happy to see the start of a new year, while others will be cautious and perhaps nervous of what 2017 will bring.  Of course, the concept of a "new year" is a purely man made notion to help us fix ourselves in time within days, weeks and months and likewise in hours, minutes, seconds and even nano seconds - which I understand is equal to one billionth of a second, one nano second being to one second as one second is to 31.7 years. At this point my mind boggles and fails to comprehend the enormity of "time" as we as humans on earth, know it. Our idea of a month comes from the moon and many cultures over thousands of years have used months with lengths of 29 or 30 days to divide the year up into manageable pieces. With this system though, there is the problem of having moon cycles at 29.5 days not dividin...

Since my mother now  91 years old, moved out of her home of 62 years and into a care home, I have stored in my spare room a large collection of paper work, written over many years by my mother and father.  They were both involved in the Methodist Church since childhood, Dad being a Local Preacher and Mam leading a weekly Women's Group at "The Chapel" at Whitburn for around forty or more years.  Whitburn, Then and Now  by J Gordon Holmes When we look at these writings - readings, anecdotes, poetry and stories - with Mam, she remembers things sometimes and has forgotten them completely at other times, but she is always amazed that she wrote them and pleased that we can share them and the memories, together. One, about people who collect things, which we read the other day was particularly apt. It is a slow process as she finds it difficult to concentrate - as do I -  some days.  My Dad, who died in 1989, was a writer, musician, artist, local historian and aer...

Having not put pen to paper or rather fingers to keyboard to write anything more creative than a comment and share on Facebook or Twitter - some serious but mostly trivial or joking - I somehow found myself being directed from an Author  Community post to a "Freelance Writer" website, this morning.  I say "somehow" as if it was a surprise to me, but as the speedy diversion from one activity to another is how my life runs these days, it wasn't surprising at all. Whether this is a sign of old age, lack of concentration or plain stupidity (probably all three and more) I do it constantly, much to my own annoyance.  I put bread in the toaster and fill the kettle to make tea or coffee and notice that the tea towels washed earlier are still sitting in the washing machine, so pick them out and begin to hang them on the line. I wonder where the peg bag was left, and a search for it down the garden begins, involving a quick sweep of the path, pulling up a couple of weeds...

I thought I’d done with camping and caravanning a long time ago. I’d had enough of crawling about on hands and knees looking for a torch in the darkness of a tent in the middle of the night to light the way to the toilet – or sometimes a convenient bush.  No more shouting “keep off the sides of the tent” at everyone in hearing distance so that the deluge of rain, that usually begins before the tent is even erected doesn’t soak through. Enough of spending the majority of what is supposed to be a ‘holiday’ folding and unfolding sleeping bags, blankets and towels and dodging precariously strung lines dripping with wet washing. Gone the days of sitting around a single gas burner stove that takes an hour to boil a kettle and even longer to cook 2 rashers of bacon and an egg.  At my age I ought to know better. But it seems that once the idea of the open road and the freedom of the outdoor life is in your blood it never leaves you.            ...

In what sometimes feels like another life, thirteen years ago I set off to follow the route that the author and poet Laurie Lee took in his book "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning".

The Deceit - Ghassan Abou El Ola Behind the slogans, speeches, political statements, and spirited songs of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) lies a hidden entity very different from descriptions widely circulated. Through the personal experiences of an officer serving in the Palestinian Naval Forces, ' The Deceit ' reveals the truth about an inscrutable shadow organisation whose fortune amounted to 50 billion dollars – a fortune of which its sources or destinations are unknown except to a handful of people entrusted by the leader, to run its investments. The book describes how the junta, who held power in the PLO continuously for more than half a century, jostled for these fortunes and their returns, and how many wars were started and lost killing tens of thousands, mostly civilian, innocent people. Once these wars stopped being profitable at the beginning of the Soviet Union collapse, this junta turned to the political arena and allied itself with 'pea...

The sky has changed from this morning from a hazy grey to a brilliant, clear blue. White cumulus clouds float motionless above the roof of the house and the sun shines hot on the back of my neck and uncovered head. I have crossed the causeway to the sounds of herring gulls screeching their familiar call. Now the sound has changed to the gentle chirruping of reed warblers as they dart in and out of the wet marram grass, which blankets this part of the island from the dunes on the sand to the gorse bushes around the pond. The old windmill still stands, tall and sail-less as it surveys the shore, watching the endless tides ebb and flow, day in day out, through all seasons.   It was winter the first time I met you here. You stood on the turrets of the mill, waving and calling to me as the wind tried to blow you from the top. Your words sailed away and out on the tide leaving me not knowing what it was you’d said. The door of the house opens outwards into the heather-like patches o...

It's the usual thing for any blogger/writer/up-to-the-minute person to use December 31st, New Year's Eve, to reflect on the year passed and to look forward to the new year with resolutions and intentions - and to post the thoughts for all to see.  So, as I spent yesterday reading other people's reflections and resolutions and also because I was ready for bed earlier than on an "ordinary" day, I thought I'd wait till today 1st January to post mine. Like many people, I have made resolutions in the past and not kept them further than a few days into the new year,This was probably because they weren't really my own decisions but more what I thought I 'ought' to be deciding on. Today I am not making resolutions as such, but posting 12 things that I have learned during and from 2015 (it was originally 10 things, but that would mean I learned less than an average of one a month , which is not much of an achievement - so 12 it is ) These are in no...