Heatwave

If you are in the UK, no doubt you have been experiencing extreme heat.  Today's poem is a triolet about that. Triolets are a 8-line French form which follow a pattern where there are certain lines which repeat and those that rhyme. Can you spot what the form is from this poem.  I've written 4 poems with this form over time.

I've been using a seed-sprouter and some microherb seeds I bought in lockdown from Wilko in 2021.  Cannot believe I finally got around to using it.  It's pretty cool and the heat has meant the sprouted radish seeds have been growing super quickly. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with the sprouter so that the water is not trickling down in the way it should be.  After a few days, I thought it had all gone moudly as it looked like it was covered in a fine white mould but it turned out these were the roots!  The sprouts were tasty and had a real kick to them and added a great crunch to a salad.  CBC had recently mentioned he liked bean sprouts so I decided to give this a try!

Similarly, I have been growing some peashoots from some old marrowfat peas Mum gave me.

I might try chickpeas too as I have lots of old dried ones. This looks helpful

In the garden, I've already had a lot of loganberries. After giving them a stern talking to and an ultimatum of it being the last year I was going to wait, we've had a real glut! 

Last week, the Heatwave was very strange. My school closed for 2 days so I had to work from home for 2 days. The third day, my classes were not in as their rooms have no aircon and it was stifling in their rooms. It was all very weird and I felt like I was back at the start of the 2020 Lockdown feeling like the world was about to end and not sure what to do. The third day was especially hard, even though I had plenty of work and training to do. It was so, so warm in my house, I can't imagine what it was like in a higher flat with no garden or ventilation. My Internet was pretty terrible too although after stropping at Vodafone, a booster was finally sent. Friday night, CBC and I went for a swim at 6pm in our local pool which was lovely, if a bit crowded. I walked the 1.5miles home via the Chinese and spent most of the evening in the garden as the house was so unbearable. Yesterday, we went over to mum which was nice though her house was so humid as she keeps all the doors and windows shut because of the cats. 

Today, I had an all day rehearsal with Orchestra of the City for our Mahler 7 concert on Friday if anyone is in Holborn area! 

Back to school tomorrow! 

Xx

What is it? #85

Welcome back to 'What is it?' where we try to see something in an image, beyond the literal.

Have a look at the cloud below and see if you can see any particular image beyond a cloud and once you've done that, leave a comment for everyone else to see which will then be shared in the next post! I love seeing everyone's ideas for these!

 

What about last time?

I saw this as a sort of mystical siren with the body of a cyclone or perhaps in a blaze of fire and the head of an eagle, angrily shouting to the right!

The participants this week were varied but I love them and see them all- better than mine!

4 comments:

1. 
   Bless7:52 am

   It's an elephant's trunk!

   ReplyDelete
2. 
   Anonymous8:01 am

   It's a leg wearing a stripey stocking. To the left you can just see the top of the other leg and at the top the very bottom of a dress or skirt - it's obviously a giant stepping over something.
   
   Shame I missed the last one - so many said frog but I see a butterfly!

   ReplyDelete
   Replies

   
   Confuzzled Bev8:21 pm
   This was me by the way. Not sure why I'm anonymous!
   Delete
   Reply
3. 
   jabblog12:03 pm

   It's Father Christmas' leg as he steps into or out of his sleigh.

Do let me know what you see!

Hope everyone is ok in the scorching-hot heat.

xx

Shell art

Whenever I visit a beach, I enjoy making some sort of simple art with the stones, shells or seaweed I find there. I like the idea that someone will walk along and find it and enjoy the unexpected

 

My favourite Green Pants- an Ekphastic poem

 One type of poetry I haven't tried before is an ekphrastic response or Ekphrasis. This is where you give a widely detailed commentary or imaginative response to a painting or picture.

I am not sure what prompted me to remember this photo but back in 2014, CBC and I visited Croatia for some 10 days or so and our final two days were spent in Dubrovnik and as we walked around the city walls, we spied a solitary pair of bright green pants hung from a washing line, high, high above the roofs, with an excessive 5 pegs.  Hilariously, when I think of Dubrovnik's city walls, I immeditately think of these green pants! Sorry to all the wonderful history!  

So, for some reason, a couple of weeks ago , I started writing a poem about these pants in response to my photo.

Oooooh, oooh, I've just remembered what it is!!! My insta poet friend, Amanda MacKenzie, fellow poet in the magazine with my recently published peom, posted a picture of an large number of pegs on one item.  Which then reminded me of the pants!

So, without further ado, here is my ekphrastic response to my Dubrovnik photo:

Bee on Salvia

Leigh-on-Sea has a beautiful library and gardens surrounding them. We paid a visit to Leigh fairly recently on one of the hot days in half term and enjoyed the flowers and their apian visitors.... 

 

Summer brings my favourite outfits

You might have noticed I haven't shared as many outfit pictures in recent times as in the past. There are various reasons for this but one being the fact that I find that my love for Winter and cold-weather outfits is significantly smaller than my love for Summer clothes. I just adore Summer outfits and find I just like sharing what I wear. Even if it's just a dress with little or no other styling, I still enjoy seeing and remembering them! 

So, here are a few I've worn in recent weeks. 

CBC and I went to the beach last Saturday after a wander in a town to get some essential refill items we had completely run out of. 

The skirt was Monsoon, charity shopped, and beautifully light-weight cotton. The top is, also Monsoon and linen. It's a little awkward to style but I feel cool in it! The little cotton waistcoat is embroidered and I bought it recently from Vinted. It's a little big for me but I have seen Vix wearing so many pretty waistcoats like this and wanted to try it! 

This dress is just F&F at Tesco, charity-shopped. It's a light cotton and I wore it on that hot Saturday a few weeks ago and perfect for a hot day where you want to be covered up. I wore it to go for a mooch around the shops when CBC was away and I added this Boden Cashmere cardigan I bought that day for £4 and this cute hat which I needed as I'd forgotten a hat! Plus my gold sequinned Tom pumps. 

The next outfit was worn for church the next day and then school and features my Miss Patina sailor cardigan. I added my cats as mermaids skirt, also Miss Patina plus my Clarks Funny dream shoes. And the hat! 

Another Miss Patina outfit. I tried this beautiful light-weight linen/cotton pinafore with lace trim and the cotton blouse.  I actually ended up swapping it for a darker linen version. Now looking at these pics, I'm kind of regretting swapping it but I wasn't sure about it! 

The final outfit was worn for Cultural Day at school. Last year, I wore a Greek dress (for my Greek grandma) and I did debate wearing the White F&F dress above as it has Grecian look and colours but also almost Scottish flags for some ancestors but in the end, I wore this beautiful Laura Ashley cotton lawn dress. Nothing screams English more than Laura Ashley, especially with roses. When I first wore it on this blog about 14 years ago, it was too big for me but now it fits perfectly. Soooo many compliments from staff, kids (all genders!). 

I wore this hat with it all day. 

I've got to talk about the Cultural Day. 

It was, like last year, an incredible day! 

Everyone was dressed in outfits which they felt reflected a culture they have a connection or background to. 

Last year, the same week, we did three morning performances on 3 days in Mid-July to parents featuring songs from multiple cultures represented in my school. 

This year, as it was May and we had only had 6 weeks to learn songs, we just did internal assemblies. Also, we have been having a focus on representing South Asian cultures. As part of this, I had sent out a request to staff to see if anyone was willing to do a short term club to teach some sort of South Asian dance. To my delight,  3 members of staff volunteered to run clubs for 3 different year groups and different types of dace- one Rajusthani puppet dance for year 1-2, another Dandiya stick dance to year 3-4 and another Bhangra dance to year 5-6.

In each assembly, all three dance groups performed, brilliantly.

In Year 1-2, I had taught them, and they sang 3 songs.  Ghum Parani from Bangladesh, Anile, Anile O diva from Sri Lanka and Ali Baba from Afghanistan.  They did such a sweet job of the songs especially the Afghan song.

In year 3-4, I taught them Khamma Mana Nanderji from India and Alef Ba (alphabet song) from Afghanistan and in addition , recorder club played a piece from Jamaica.

In year 5-6, they sang Alef Ba from Afghanistan and Eso Eso by Rabindrath Tagore from the West Bengal/Bangledesh and drumming club performed some Bhangra Chaal drumming rhythmson snare drums.  The whole day was extremely joyful and I was so proud of all the children.

One lovely member of staff came and gave me a hug when she heard Eso Eso as she said she had sung that in school and loved it and was so glad I had helped her twin girls learn some songs from their cultural background when they had shown little interest when she had tried to interest them in it. This really touched me!

 

Seascene

 The Toy Press Word of the Week, two weeks ago was 'Lap'. 

I decided to write a poem for my Year 2 children for their seaside topic and tried to use a repeating refrain effect. It's very KS1 and twee but here's hoping it has an effect.

Sorry, the return to reality has been exhausting and I had a really awful headache for the past two days which just wouldn't abate so I did little other than lie down... After getting back at 8.20pm after Elizabeth Line delays and then putting together dinner. 

Today I'm taking my little year 2 choir on a school trip to a KS1 Singing festival. I've just realised that I get no break though as I finish with year 5 at 12.30 and have to then leave at 12.30 with the Year 2's....ahrgh!!!

Hope all is well with you!

Xx