Another distractions week

This week has produced very little writing. We are deep in the design for the new kitchen and I am an expert on worktops and fridges. Not to mention taps and sinks. I have sent for a light meter because I don't trust anyone on lighting. Its very confusing and we like our rooms really bright!! That might be an older person's thing.

We moved my aunt into sheltered accommodation - all on one level, which will be much better for her. We were so exhausted at the end of the day that we felt as if we had moved ourselves (well, OK, not that bad).

Only a few weeks to go til the Amazon trip - will we meet the deadline for the kitchen order? We intend to buy malaria tablets on Monday and yellow fever vaccinations are booked for the following week. And Christmas needs to be organised before we go, including writing the cards. I have just baked a ginger cake, to go in the freezer and be used at Christmas.

We found out today that one of our neighbours, an otherwise healthy woman of similar age to us, had a stroke. You never know and you need to make the most of everything.

Received another good picture of Dinosaur's no-holds-barred approach to eating. A few days ago we Skyped him and he spent some of the time round the back of the screen looking for us.

I saw a greetings card in the shop which really annoyed me. It was a retirement card which suggested retirement was about getting up late, having long boozy lunches and snoozing the afternoon away. Well, its nothing like that here!! In fact, that lifestyle sounds like a recipe for early ill health. We still walk a bit and do Tai Chi most days, as well as racing round the house all day doing chores.

TSH is already emoting about Cruise 2016. Cruise 2015 is, of course, already booked.

Metaphor

In the euphoria about getting the MA, I still managed to start some work on Cohen's use of metaphor. It's difficult to do this one methodically. I started by taking every 50th line of the lyrics, which gave me 90 lines. Almost one third of them contain creative metaphor, which seems high but I have not compared it with anything else - I could use the comparison corpus from the other popular songs.
TSH was out today and I constructed our new shoe storage unit. Millions of pieces and no instructions. But I mostly managed it - good job I'm a Chartered Engineer (in IT, so it didn't really help much) - but was nine connecting pieces short. When TSH came home, he said I had connected it wrongly and he's going to redo it. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

MA

Studentat60 has an MA!! I am so thrilled. I got 67 for the dissertation, which is pretty close to my average for the taught modules. So I think it will be a Merit. 10 years of retirement taking me from an IT background to an MA in English Language. The early retirement gods have been repaid.

Other priorities

No writing for two whole weeks. Visits to TSH's family and a four day visit to us by TSH's mother. All enjoyable but no time to think. I don't think that this was displacement activity to avoid the work of writing because its all happening in my head. This week we are home and trying to get back to normal. But we are planning a new kitchen so we spent the last two days online looking at appliances and worktops. Today we have an appointment with a designer so no writing. I hope to make a fresh start tomorrow. This must be what being a writer is like.

My shellac nails lasted for three and a half weeks, so I'm very impressed. With classic nail varnish I'm lucky if I make it out of the salon.

In one week's time, I should know if I have an MA.

Bake Off

Last week, I produced around 2,000 words. If they are all good and I keep up the pace, I will be finished in a year. But no work on Sunday because of Christmas cake and Bakewell tart baking. Having watched Great British Bake Off, I am becoming very conscious of not producing a professional finish. My food always tastes good but Paul would be horrified at the appearance.

A few hundred words about the meaning of the lyrics on Monday. My nail varnish is still good after almost two weeks.

Some progress

I managed to write a few hundred words yesterday - focus on the way Cohen uses pronouns so its not clear who everybody is. Have listened to the new album again - still  love it.

Our Tai Chi class has been closed, which is concerning because its important for our health. And we have friends we only ever see there, so we'll never see them again. It was inevitable this would happen because numbers were dwindling but we never expected at the end of a class to be told there would be no more classes. So do we join another one? Or just give up, as I have not enjoyed the classes for years and found them more and more stressful. But TSH wants to go. And its a health thing.

We'll be glad when we get a new kitchen, as the dishwasher is giving more and more problems.

Baking Christmas cake this weekend.

First Ink

I have started to write the chapter on 'who is everybody?' and have written a few hundred words about the narrator. Whilst I don't think the writing will be too difficult as I have lots of material, the discipline involved (without the deadlines associated with a course) will be tremendous. Even at 1,000 words EVERY week, it will take almost two years to get to book length.

Yesterday I went to a reunion of the women from my year at Bury Convent Grammar School (now Holy Cross College). Everybody is still lively and getting a lot out of life.

Today British Gas are in residence, fitting our new boiler. They are mostly in the kitchen but also need access to all radiators, the tank in the loft and the airing cupboard. They seem very nice, polite and considerate.

Big day today - new Cohen album - listened to it once - a triumph!!