At the beginning of the week, Sandy and I went to see ‘Blitz’ in the cinema, which was written and directed by Steve McQueen. It starred Saoirse Ronan as the mum, Paul Weller (from ‘The Jam’) as the grandad, and with an outstanding performance by Elliott Heffernen as the 9 year-old boy, with the addition of a good supporting cast. We loved the film, but I will leave it to others to write the reviews. This is me finally putting the cinema back into my life after COVID, but even so, the cinema only had about half a dozen other people in the audience as we went in the middle of the day.
On Tuesday, shopping happened later in the day as Sandy had an old friend visiting, and Nia had a Migraine, so no video chat with her, but I used the time to put the final touches to a poem called ‘Old Cronies’, and it can be found here.
Wednesday was largely domestic chores, but a fair amount of reading and writing on top.
Thursday brought a significant drop in temperatures, so definitely heading towards Winter, now, but I still haven’t turned-on the heating. I went to the audiologist for successful termination to treatment.
On Friday, I made it over to the Royal West of England Academy art gallery (RWA). The art was amazing, and it was just wonderful to experience so much of it. I was amazed at the modernity of it all, and the complexity of minds that created it, and somewhat dark in some cases. There were themes of movement, tranquillity, plaster sculptures, miniature bronzes, special effects and constructed frames (where the art is revealed in the white spaces between), to name just some of what was going on.
There was great variety and range of sizes from tiny miniatures to huge pieces covering loads of wall space. I loved it.
On the way back home on the bus, two people were talking about the BBC, as one of them worked there, in the main Bristol building. It was fascinating to hear, as they were both older (around the 50-ish mark) working-class Bristolians, using the backdrop of the BBC in Bristol since its inception to comment on how many things had changed over the years.
I picked-up the last of my meds for this week (from 3 visits) from the pharmacy at the end of the road where I live.
Saturday was largely more cooking. I am putting as much in the freezer as I can manage before the next teaching block, which is just one week away now.
I also posted some flash-fiction called “Mr Robinson’s Razor”, and it can be found here.
Sunday saw the slow grind of politicians from all sides trying to justify their existence, and their way of doing things. Beyond that was thinking time for me. Some shake-up is required for me, I think. That will probably come with the next teaching block on my course in 8 days’ time, but that could become a case of “be careful what you wish for” with a module title of “Writing and The Self”; and Winter break is slap bang in the middle of it.
I will take a break from Medium at that point, but not for reading for my next assignment. I will leave the celebration of Christmas and New Year to those around me. I am not religious, and I get somewhat sickened by the materialism and gross consumption of alcohol.
I will have an assignment deadline to meet, so I will be busy, and I will meet-up with family independently of Christmas and New year.
Yes, I guess I have to hold-up my hands to being Mr Party-Pooper at Christmas, but then again, most in my family don’t want the big gatherings of yesteryear anymore. For me, I live alone, and I enjoy the tranquillity of solitude, and that is also the case during December and January, as it is for any other month.
Anyway, we are not there yet. I am going to Cardiff with Sandy, tomorrow, to visit our daughter, and that is something that I love doing.
A final thing that I have commenced doing is putting a ‘Friends Link’ in at the beginning of each story. It is something that I meant to do when I joined the Medium Partnership Program a few months ago (as it is not entirely about money, for me), but I forgot to do that. So now, I have started to do that, but it will take some time to complete.
Fraser
November 2024