Haikus, houses and Holmes

Book News:

I'm happy to say that my latest poetry collection, Sunday Haiku, has already received two 4-star reviews at Goodreads, one from Kim and one from Lisa, who says amongst other comments that she "felt captured within the calm of the poetry" which is precisely the feeling I was trying to attain. Thank you very much, both. And you can now also find Sunday Haiku on sale in PDF version at Rainbow Ebooks, so I hope that covers all buying possibilities. Enjoy!

In addition, I'm getting towards writing the final few scenes of The Prayer Seeker's Journal, where you can now find the latest episode. There's a time lag between writing them and actually uploading them, but I hope to finish the first draft by the autumn or thereabouts, though I suspect the last few chapters will be fairly long.

Other books news includes the following: Creative Accountancy for Beginners found itself in the Smashwords Top 10 Humour Bestsellers list, which has been a lovely boost; Painting from Life gained a 4-star review at Goodreads; and The Bones of Summer also had a 4-star Goodreads review - many thanks, Nene, for reading! Meanwhile The Delaneys and Me, continues its rise and fall through the Amazon Kindle Gay Fiction charts, rising as high as No 32 this week.

Recent meditations are:

Meditation 396
No matter
how many lists you make –

table, lampstand,
flowers, cups, bowls

and all the paraphernalia
of fire and hope –

you cannot keep God
contained by your

limitation.


Meditation 397
A cloudy day
and a simple ritual,

wood and stone
and silent angels,

but when the light
arrives, it dazzles you

to the eternal changeability
of prayer.


Meditation 398
The slow history
of stone

wraps you round
in memory

and truth,
helps you

pray again.


And here's a poem I've also written this week:


East

These eastern winds
are an icy layer
leaving you
and me

too close
for comfort

and too far away
to see.


This week's haiku:

Two blue bicycles
energise the road, piercing
the day's warm silence.


Life News:

The very big news this week which is both exciting and terrifying is that we and our deceased neighbour's nephews have agreed on a price for his old flat (below ours) - it's at the upper limit of our budget but we think that with a bit of scraping around and with the wind in the right direction we can do it, hurrah! So we're now plunged into the process of conveyancing and soliciting (as it were) and mortgaging, and we hope to have contracts exchanged - all things being equal - by the end of August. I hope it all goes to plan, as it would be great to have more space, not to mention a part of the house garden and a garage. And two floors, well gosh. Whatever next? We won't be able to eat or go on holiday for the next five years, but what the heck, eh. Who needs food or aeroplanes? We do so love the house, which has got an NVQ Level 5 in Character, though those old Victorian pipes can be a tad dodgy (don't ask, but never ever put anything at all if you can possibly help it down the loo in a Victorian house - a piece of Life Advice you can have for free ...!), so it would be lovely to have more of it. So watch this space, and wish us luck.

Marian and I had a good round of golf on Friday, though we can tell that the schools are ready to break up, as it took a lot longer to go round. I started off with two pretty damn glorious pars (hurrah!) but rapidly faded, so only just managed to scrape victory from the certain jaws of defeat. Yesterday, I was briefly (on a Saturday, how dreadful!) back at work to help out in the afternoon at the University's open day - which I must say was the busiest I've ever known, so I did a heck of a lot of smiling, and was utterly shattered when I got home. So much so that I nearly fell asleep in front of our recorded episode of Midsomer Murders and had to go to bed at 9.30pm, which is really unheard of.

I'm still tired today as well, but this might have been a good thing as they sprang a cunning double christening at church on us today, so there was a lot of water and gurgling, not all of which was me. I'm not a great fan of christenings to be honest - too child-centred for my tastes, but I did a lot of smiling and trying to look normal, so I think people were fooled. Mind you, the family had dressed up to the nines, which was nice to see, and all looked very glam. We're not used to that in the Sunday crowd ...

Ooh, and tonight I and Lord H are hugely looking forward to the new updated version of Sherlock Holmes, which I'm sure will be well worth catching - 9pm on BBC. Don't miss it! Must dash and get my violin and deerstalker hat ready, if only for old times' sake.

Anne Brooke
The Prayer Seeker's Journal