The end of the year and it is time to review my year’s writing. This is a piece I wrote for my writing group.
Parade Day
I had an empty day at the end of the working week. Empty days are rare in my life especially since I began the on-line course, ‘Self publish your book with Joel Naoum’, that has become very demanding.
I don’t follow AFL so it took me a while to realise that it was the Grand Final Parade Day and therefore a public holiday. Not knowing this meant no social arrangements booked in. To have an empty day in my life is sheer bliss.
On Thursday evening I drank some wine and stayed up late reading. It was a crime novel and for some reason annoyed me but I read on. I woke in the night and read some more. No work in the morning so I kept reading. Friday was mine to lie around as much as liked. Finally I drifted back to sleep novel finished.
A loud ringing on the door bell woke me. The clock said 9.15. Should I answer? It’s an old fashioned door bell. The type that has a key and harsh sound emanates from it. It rang again for longer this time. I cuddled into my soft feather doona hoping it would go away. The hand on the other side of the door kept turning and the harsh sound started to get a bit croaky. They’ll break it I thought as I struggled into my dressing gown, opened it a crack and peered out.
‘Good morning. Gas reading,” said a cheery voice. He flashed his credentials in front of me, ‘Your gate’s locked.’
‘Oh!… Oh right… I’ll go round.’
I found the keys and wondered what to do with the front door. Should I shut it in his face and trek through the house, out the back door and around to the side gate? Shutting it in his face seemed rude. Even so I shut it His aggressive bell ring made me nervous. I fished my slippers out from under the bed and shuffled off.
‘I’m pleased I was home,’ I says when I’m standing by the open gate and have gathered my wits. It’s been estimated for ages now.’
‘When I saw your car I thought you’d be home.’ I don’t tell him the previous gas reader used to peer through the fence from next door to read it. He must’ve had better eye sight than this guy. And when I think on it better eye sight than I’ve got. Perhaps he just made an estimated and pretended he could see the numbers.
As this one leaves he looks at me in my dressing-gown, slept in hair and worn slippers and says, ‘What you want now is a nice cup of tea. That’ll see you right.’
When I’m back inside I look in the mirror and think I need more that a ‘nice cup of tea’ but I have a whole empty day before me to fill or a day not to fill, just a day to let drift. A good way to start is breakfast and emails. Then I wonder why he’s working on this public holiday. I wished I’d asked him.
The tutor of the publishing course has emailed to say that my cover brief is great and would I like him to submit it. He is also working. This is an achievement. My other assignments have needed work. For example the one I submitted for the blurb on the back was used as a demonstration piece to show that a blurb is not a review and mine read as if I had culled it straight from a newspaper. I have rewritten it a couple more times, now. Some assignments have still to come back to me but I take comforted knowing that a nice cup of tea will see me right.
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My writing group laughed when I read this out loud to them. I hope it amuses you and lightens your day.
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Bird of Paradise leaves
I have these Bird of Paradise leaves on my desk at the moment.
I have the luck to have some growing. The flowers of course are stunning and I also like the leaves that are no less stunning with their bluey green colour and that touch of red. They give such dramatic architectural effect. I have had disasters with them. It is so easy to have the vase topple over. These are in an IKEA vase that is very well balanced and I have cut them short. I’m still being careful of them incase they decide to topple!
A comprehensive source of information about the Bird of Paradise is at Happy DIY Home