Title COLOUR

Trying to get rid of the orange which is almost invisible.

I sent this off but have just found spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Rookie mistakes. I should know better.

Waterways Short Story Competition

A RELAXING WEEKEND ON THE CANAL 

In less than a mile I reached the Harecastle tunnel in a seventy foot barge with lamp like a candle. The barge ricocheted from side to side. BOOM, BOOM. I was terrified as I passed the entrance of the disused coal mine reputed to be haunted by the Kidsgrove Bogart. I sailed out into the sunlight shaking but  relieved to see my crew, son Robert and partner Philp coming along the towpath. 
All aboard! It went well until -- a long lorry, parked with its rear-end overhanging the canal by six feet. I hit it. The number plate on barge was sliced off.
At the end of  a peaceful day we moored and cycled towards the nearest pub in single file, Philip last.  He braked to prevent himself from touching my rear wheel, splosh - into the canal he went. Philip not an athletic man, leapt out as though he had landed on a springboard. We laughed hysterically. Seeing his hat floating on the water he said, ‘Must take photo, that hat cost me ten quid.’ The hat said, ‘Blub, ’ and sank.
On the last day Philip was steering. ‘There’s the lorry your mother hit on the way out.' He reached for his camera. We hit the lorry for a second time taking off the other number plate .
 Returning through the tunnel Philip steering, I shouted, ‘Look the Bogart’.  A white shape floated towards us then turned into the old mine. A trick of the light?  It was enough to make Philip pass the helm to me.  I steered the barge out into the sunlight.

We have a blurry photo of the lorry but sadly not the hat. Philip is no David Bailey and it seems that neither of us is Ellen MacArthur.

Brick wall women

Women in the cracks

1. Hypatia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

2. Pope Joan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan

3. Hildergard of Bingham

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingham

4. Christine de pizan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan

5. Aphra Ben https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra_Behn

6. Jocelyn Bell Burnell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Bell_Burnell

7. Mary Wollstonecroft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft

I could write a book

Letter to Mslexia

I sent an email to Mslexia. I sent it to the forum because I couldn't find the letters page. And guess what? They emailed me back to ask if they could print a shorter version in their next issue on the letters page. 

Just the publication of a letter gives me such a boost. I had begun to wonder if I could write or even if I wanted to. So what now? I must find someone to critique my short stories. That might have to be in the winter as I am still organising this house. 

Growing Old

Being Old 

When I tell people my age they always says, "Ooh, you don't look it". It doesn't help. No it doesn't help because I feel it. I have macular degeneration in my right eye, I am quite deaf in my left ear, my right should is very painful and my left hand also. When I walk I have sudden spasms of sciatica  and my lower back hurts. I am unable to bend down. If I do get on the floor for any reason then I am afraid I will have to stay there until help arrives. I have stopped having showers because I am afraid of falling. That used to worry me but you know what my father never had a bath or a shower ever, that's right not ever in his life and he lived to be 89.

So I am 80 but I don't look it so that's OK then.

My Brother

I shall write about my brother in spite of yesterday's post.

 When I was three he left home to join the army but I remember one evening when my parents were out and the four of us were together. I must have done something wrong. I was crying and he said to my sister, "You shouldn't cuddle her when I have chastised her."

The next memory was when he came home on leave. He was enamoured with me. I didn't know what to do it felt strange especially as there was no physical contact in the family. My mother had told me when I was five that I was too old for cuddles.

He took me to the toy counter in Woolworth's and asked me what I wanted. In my head I wanted nothing and everything. I was afraid 

that he was going to spend money on me. I can't remember what I asked for. They were all cheap plastic toys. I was confused and felt uncomfortable because no one ever took any notice of me except to say "Be quiet or don't do that." 

I think he wrote to my mother from Egypt and one time there was a photo of him with his army mates. "That's him in the middle," said my mother pointing to the fattest. "No it's not he's on the end. It says on the back," I said.  My mother burst into tears, "He's so thin." 

He was too you could count his ribs.

He never came home to us. But shortly after that he came back to England from Kenya to a military hospital in Grayshott in Hampshire.

Was it Kenya or Egypt? 
 He came out of hospital and was discharged from the army with a pension. He married a much younger women who was petite. I remember she had to buy children's shoes. I was a bridesmaid.

NB I was also a bridesmaid to my sister and cousin. Three times a bridesmaid never a bride.

Mundanity ( yes it is a word I looked it up)

My life seems mundane in comparison to the women who write in Ms.. 

"Where do memories hide? The pine trees sing.

In language of course, the four pathways reply.

What if the words be lost? the pine trees sigh."

       Afterwardness by Mimi Khalvati

This is the first time I have ever been moved deeply by poetry. 

 Yesterday I spent an hour writing in my head about my brother. This morning I read these words and wonder why is my writing so mundane.