Sunday, September 10, 2006
Balance Restored
I woke up at 6.30am with Laura standing by the bed asking if Mum was home yet. "She's hiding under the bed," I said. "Ha ha," she replied. "I'm not that stupid." Quite.
Teletext had updated throughout the night and was showing Gail's flight being due in at 0700, meaning she had endured a 90 minute delay. Taking the car picktime -up and drive through from Glasgow into account, I figured it would be around 9am before she pitched up outside. So while Laura watched cartoons and ate breakfast, I snoozed on the couch, while we waited for Gail to come home.
At 9:06 I heard a car pull up outside and we jumped up and stood to attention in the living room. We heard the key push into the door, then the living room door creaked open and a tanned face popped through the gap. Gail was home and we rushed to greet her. Thank God. It's been a long, long week without her.
I made cups of tea and bacon butties for everyone while Gail told us about her holiday. There was much excitement when she went to the loo for the first time, and as she walked in me and Laura waited to hear her response concerning the newly painted shower room. "It's lovely," she said, and followed it up with a million questions about how I'd actually done it.
With order now fully restored to the galaxy, Laura went out to play and Gail flaked out on the couch to catch up on a week's worth of Eastenders and Coronation Street. With Laura now in someone else's hands, I decided to rest my weary eyes for five minutes and lay down on the bed. I honestly only intended it to be for five minutes, but I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon. I woke at 5pm, and after a strong coffee, I felt much, much better. It had been an exhausting week and my body has been crying out for sleep for days.
Writing.
Recently I have been working on a set of exercises put together by Devon Ellington on The Scruffy Dog Review Blog. These concerned writing prompts using objects, names etc. One, which was a phrase prompt, has given me trouble forming a solid idea, so I went back to the original set of exercises from April, which revolved around writing stories inspired by newspaper articles.
So this evening I dug out some old newspapers and got hunting. Pretty soon I had enough for two dozen stories. I randomly picked six and began with the exercises set by Devon. I'll run both sets of exercises in tandom.
The articles I picked were:
* Bartender receiving a £10k tip for a £26 meal
* 15 year-old boy caught with a home-made bomb in school
* 3 year-old boy found critically ill at a house who then died in hospital. Parents being questioned.
* Road sweepers in Tranent not picking up litter in revolt against litter louts.
* Pope's holy-roller vehicle auctioned for £37k.
* Support mounts for independent film agency in Scotland.
We had to randomly select 3 clippings, then from these, randomly select one to write a piece of flash fiction (upto 500 words) about. The story I selected was the one about the 3-year old boy found critically ill in his home, who subsequently died, and his parents were being questioned by police. The first draft came in at 524 words but needs a lot of tightening, which will bring it down. It's called House Call.
Next thing we had to do was select one of the remaining two clippings and write a 1200 word story about it. I selected the story about the 15-year old school kid with the home-made bomb found in his school bag. I made a start on this one before finally hitting the sack as tiredness, once again, crept up on me like a large sleepy snail.
I feel much better now Gail is back. Balanced. Normal. Happy. When we left the chuirch after our wedding ceremnoy a little over 3 years ago, we did so to the sound of one of Madness' greatest hits, It Must Be Love. The first line of the lyrics to that song explicity reveal my feelings about this past week. They go something like this:
I never thought I'd miss you half as much as I do
And I never thought I'd feel this way, the way I feel about you
As soon as I wake up, every night, every day
I know that it's you I need to take the blues away
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Nothing more, nothing less, love is the best
How can it be that we can say so much without words
Bless you and bless me, bless the bees and the birds
I've got to be near you, every night, every day
I couldn't be happy any other way
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Nothing more nothing less love is the best
As soon as I wake up, every night, every day
I know that it's you I need to take the blues away
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Lyrics Copyright (c) Labi Siffre.
No complaints about the sickly post, please!
Teletext had updated throughout the night and was showing Gail's flight being due in at 0700, meaning she had endured a 90 minute delay. Taking the car picktime -up and drive through from Glasgow into account, I figured it would be around 9am before she pitched up outside. So while Laura watched cartoons and ate breakfast, I snoozed on the couch, while we waited for Gail to come home.
At 9:06 I heard a car pull up outside and we jumped up and stood to attention in the living room. We heard the key push into the door, then the living room door creaked open and a tanned face popped through the gap. Gail was home and we rushed to greet her. Thank God. It's been a long, long week without her.
I made cups of tea and bacon butties for everyone while Gail told us about her holiday. There was much excitement when she went to the loo for the first time, and as she walked in me and Laura waited to hear her response concerning the newly painted shower room. "It's lovely," she said, and followed it up with a million questions about how I'd actually done it.
With order now fully restored to the galaxy, Laura went out to play and Gail flaked out on the couch to catch up on a week's worth of Eastenders and Coronation Street. With Laura now in someone else's hands, I decided to rest my weary eyes for five minutes and lay down on the bed. I honestly only intended it to be for five minutes, but I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon. I woke at 5pm, and after a strong coffee, I felt much, much better. It had been an exhausting week and my body has been crying out for sleep for days.
Writing.
Recently I have been working on a set of exercises put together by Devon Ellington on The Scruffy Dog Review Blog. These concerned writing prompts using objects, names etc. One, which was a phrase prompt, has given me trouble forming a solid idea, so I went back to the original set of exercises from April, which revolved around writing stories inspired by newspaper articles.
So this evening I dug out some old newspapers and got hunting. Pretty soon I had enough for two dozen stories. I randomly picked six and began with the exercises set by Devon. I'll run both sets of exercises in tandom.
The articles I picked were:
* Bartender receiving a £10k tip for a £26 meal
* 15 year-old boy caught with a home-made bomb in school
* 3 year-old boy found critically ill at a house who then died in hospital. Parents being questioned.
* Road sweepers in Tranent not picking up litter in revolt against litter louts.
* Pope's holy-roller vehicle auctioned for £37k.
* Support mounts for independent film agency in Scotland.
We had to randomly select 3 clippings, then from these, randomly select one to write a piece of flash fiction (upto 500 words) about. The story I selected was the one about the 3-year old boy found critically ill in his home, who subsequently died, and his parents were being questioned by police. The first draft came in at 524 words but needs a lot of tightening, which will bring it down. It's called House Call.
Next thing we had to do was select one of the remaining two clippings and write a 1200 word story about it. I selected the story about the 15-year old school kid with the home-made bomb found in his school bag. I made a start on this one before finally hitting the sack as tiredness, once again, crept up on me like a large sleepy snail.
I feel much better now Gail is back. Balanced. Normal. Happy. When we left the chuirch after our wedding ceremnoy a little over 3 years ago, we did so to the sound of one of Madness' greatest hits, It Must Be Love. The first line of the lyrics to that song explicity reveal my feelings about this past week. They go something like this:
I never thought I'd miss you half as much as I do
And I never thought I'd feel this way, the way I feel about you
As soon as I wake up, every night, every day
I know that it's you I need to take the blues away
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Nothing more, nothing less, love is the best
How can it be that we can say so much without words
Bless you and bless me, bless the bees and the birds
I've got to be near you, every night, every day
I couldn't be happy any other way
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Nothing more nothing less love is the best
As soon as I wake up, every night, every day
I know that it's you I need to take the blues away
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Lyrics Copyright (c) Labi Siffre.
No complaints about the sickly post, please!
Colin 2:59 pm
2 Comments:
I never knew Labi Siffre wrote that -- it's one of Madness's top tunes as well.
Not only did he write the song, he appeared in the video that Madness shot for it... the black guy in the brass section who winks at the camera near the end.... ;-)