Loose ends and holidays

First off, here’s this morning’s meditation poem:

Meditation 79

Every curtain, every lampstand,
every peg and post
has its keeper:

an army of men
whose lives are immersed
in the utensils of God.

You have lived so long
amongst fabric
that the beauty is lost

like the far-off words
of a prophet
or a priest.

At work, I’m trying to tie up the loose ends before the holiday begins (hurrah!). Looks like I might even be on track for succeeding in that aim too – you never know. I even managed to have time to walk round the campus at lunchtime. We’re still admiring the deer statue, though we don’t know how long it will survive unscathed in these difficult times … I also popped into the latest exhibition at the gallery – Jo from the Arts Office warned me it was hard-hitting and it certainly is. Very strong though. It’s an exhibition focusing on the sexualisation of children’s clothing, even from birth – and it’s an eye-opener to me for sure and has certainly made me think. So well done to the Arts Office for being brave, and far-sighted, enough to put it on. Mind you, these days, sexualisation of people isn’t just a problem for children – I suspect we all do it too much and in a variety of ways. Something to do with the world’s obsession with appearance, no doubt.

This afternoon, I’ve had my first Starbucks decaff cappuccino of the week, and my last for the next week or so for sure. It’s been bliss – one of the highlights of my day, I can tell you.

In terms of literary life, I’ve started work on a short story about a trip to the moon, courtesy of yesterday’s Writers’ Group game. I’m quite enjoying it and I have some inkling of how it might end, which is nice. And rare. I just have to work out how to get there, ho ho.

Oh and, bearing in mind it’s the first day of Lent, I’ll be beginning my Lent reading tonight, which will be Rowan Williams’ Silence and Honey Cakes. Well, I liked the title and it’s relatively short, so I should be able to manage at least some of it in the next forty days. Maybe I could have done with more (or indeed any) pictures though … My, how I do love jolly holiday reading.

I managed to do some packing last night, and will finish it off tonight as quickly as possible – I have to have an early night as we have to get up at 3.30am tomorrow in order to leave the flat by 5am and be at Heathrow by 6am ready for the 7.55am flight. Have you followed all that? Gosh. Well done indeed. If I can get my eyes open at some stage during it all, I’ll be grateful We’re off to Istanbul where we’ll be staying at the Avicenna Hotel, which looks lovely, though I’m not entirely sure what an evaporated mirror is (see the room description). I suspect I might well have need of it however … Especially as the weather forecast is high winds and rain.

And I’m not even thinking about the Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul that crashed in Amsterdam this morning. No, don’t tell me about it. I simply don’t want to know, my dears …

Will be back on Monday (assuming Turkish Airlines manage to keep the plane up in the sky, that is), quite late, so will catch up with blogging on Tuesday. I hope you all have a good weekend and don’t work too hard. I don’t intend to. Honestly, it hasn’t been a bad day after all – it’s amazing how relatively normal I am when my hormones stop fighting me …

Today’s nice things:

1. Poetry
2. Lunchtime walks
3. Decaff cappuccino
4. Short stories
5. Looking at the hotel website
6. Holidays.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - heading for the ... um ... rain ...