Happy Easter Weekend!

Tomorrow is the start of National Poetry Month...which I think is actually an American tradition rather than a British one, but people all over the world join in. The point is to keep the mental cogs smoothly moving by writing a poem every day during the month of April, whether draft, working poem or otherwise. I participated last year, and it really worked for me, possibly because I like being challenged and having something to work towards...I wrote quite furiously last time, and got several decent poems out of the exercise, so I will definitely be joining in again this year.

Things are good at the moment. I am enjoying the rain (I have missed the rain! Only snow and ice this Winter, no rain), working superhard and writing here and there. I have several notebooks on the go, which I find is helping in those times when I want to write something but don't know what to write...so am altogether contented.

The daffodils are out in their frilly, brilliant yellow bonnets, the grass is green, and it's starting to feel like Spring is really arriving. It's the Easter Bank Holiday weekend here, which means no work Friday or Monday, and although I love my job (now that I've moved back to my old office), I'm looking forward to some time off. Poetry reading tomorrow (I will be listening, not reading), channelling my inner domestic goddess on Friday (will be baking up a storm) and then art gallery on Saturday. And I haven't even planned for Sunday and Monday yet, but I am excited for them anyway.

Life is good. It's easy to forget that sometimes. But it is.

(Pre) Christmas Tidings

The Christmas lights are up everywhere already - the town hall is particularly beautiful, strung all over with tiny blue white lights and a huge, simple tree by the grand-looking entrance. And there are penguin statues everywhere, all of a sudden - a little like the Cow Parade that happened a few years ago, where life sized model-cows sprang up across the city, each one painted differently. So far I've seen a blue penguin covered all over with silver and white snowflakes, a realistic black and white penguin with a purple Emperor-sash, and a penguin painted with grass and flowers. Even though I don't like my job very much at the moment, I do love working in a city centre, particularly at Christmas time - random penguin statues, eggnog lattes, pinkcheeked shoppers, Christmas carols, wet streets gleaming with the smeared reflection of a million fairylights...so pretty. I'm catching the train into Manchester on Saturday as the seasonal German Markets have arrived, and my friend Olivia and I go every year - it's sort of our tradition. We wander round the log-cabin type stalls buying cheeses and wooden toys and tree decorations getting pinker and pinker and colder and colder, and then finally, when we're really, truly frozen, we go to the huge cabin at the centre of the square for mulled wine and hot cinnamon waffles.

I still don't have plans for Christmas Day...part of me wants to spend it alone this year - buy new pyjamas, a fluffy blanket and slippers and spend the day on the couch wrapped up reading new books (which I always get stacks of), just being quiet and peaceful and appreciative. But we'll see.

I'll be doing all of my shopping on Christmas Eve, as usual. I hate the thought of reducing Christmas to a shopping list, pencilled out ages in advance and items neatly crossed off each month. I prefer last minute gift-buying, it feels much more Christmassy - dashing in and out of the shops with my red Starbucks cup clutched tightly in one hand and a plethora of plastic bags cutting grooves in the other one...aaah, Christmas, how very much I love thee!