Tag Archives: Birthday

NaPoWriMo ~ The Final Full Weekend

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Here we are, Shakespeare’s Birthday, St George’s Day and the final FULL weekend for NaPoWriMo 2022.

Sometimes at this stage people are either sad to see the end of the challenge or more than happy to see it finish. This year I am caught somewhere between the two… I am delighted the challenge fell during time off work, but I have a lot of things going on at the moment and turning up everyday has been difficult, but when I weigh that against all I have learnt, read and the fun along the way, it is (as always) worth it.

Looking back at the stack I think I have a couple of gems I can work with. I acknowledge there are poems in the making which wouldn’t otherwise exist.

Doing the picture prompts has been time consuming, but heart-warming to see them shared on Twitter. I hope you have all reached a point of reflection where there is hope and happiness in your decisions. I am sure we have all managed something or got pleasure from the resources Maureen Thorson has shared with us along the way.

Think of all the poems you’ve read!

It has been a pleasure! And the best… It’s not over yet – there’s another week to go!


And for anyone struggling here are some tips.

Scroll to the end of the post for the Tips.

St. George’s Day

The link at the bottom for the full post will take you to my Worcestershire Poet Laureate website.

My Birthday Week, Poetry Events and Special Times

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The Birthday week started – the birthday week is when normal social occasions get preceded by ‘birthday’ regardless of whether they have anything to do with my birthday at all.

partytime

 

I LOVE birthdays – but this year I have decided I don’t want to grow any older. That’s the downside.

writingrut

The week started with a day of writing, research and relaxation, long overdue and most necessary as there is barely a blank diary day now until October. We went for a meal on Monday – which was nothing to do with my birthday – but happened close enough to the celebration week to be included.

I caught up with friends on Tuesday afternoon and also went to Mouth and Music, which was an amazing night (own post to come later), yesterday I had a busy day and just enough hours to finish a special poem for my brother on his birthday – we celebrated with a family meal last night – his birthday, not mine. A great night out! We started early and were all home before 9pm as my nephews have gone off on holiday today, but I was exhausted. Happy and exhausted. Had an earlyish night and slept through. This is brilliant – Tuesday night I only managed 3 hours and Wednesday was a tough one to get through on that little sleep.

Today I would have loved a lie in but needed to get to the doctor’s. Mr G and I have less than a fortnight to sort out the allotment and we went up last week to hack back (the bit we managed will probably already be all overgrown already again)! I noticed on Friday marks on my calf and shin, they were bright red and fairly painful, I just presumed it was nettles or caught on a thorn. Not wanting to waste Doctor’s time – I let my body self heal – which it is doing – but I don’t need scars on my legs or further infection and after seeing family last night I was persuaded to take the matter more seriously. I have some cream.

Today I went to Birmingham where I performed at PFL – I cant remember the last Poetry for Lunch I managed to get to, it was the Stanza group one in June I think.

Andrea booked me a few weeks ago for a special comedy themed one. It was funny.

poetry for lunch

I was able to meet fellow 52er Rueben Woolley too.

Tonight I went to SpeakEasy, I enjoyed the entertainment and definitely count it as my 2nd Birthday outing – the 1st being Birmingham earlier and PFL, well we did all go for a drink afterwards. inkspill coffee Ben Parker headlined SpeakEasy, an Oxfordshire poet originally from Worcester, a passionate page poet, we all enjoyed his refreshing set.

I spent the afternoon in between gigs attempting to write some poetry for submission. Nothing hit me earlier, but I did manage to grab a title and write a poem about another subject entirely – all was not lost.

I am going to attempt to get some poetry down before bed after my long and pleasant day poeting!

Tomorrow I am meeting up with friends who can’t make my weekend celebrations and also need to buy (or bake) a cake for Stanza tomorrow night. 1 bday