Recipe for Turkish Delight

Bones of a horse
Interstitial time
Synovial fluid
Roses

It’s horrible

for Marty, Mel and Jo

Today

I’ve just finished the final ‘Tidy up Time’ for today. Not to my usual standard. I normally try and put everything back in some kind of order; put all the pieces of the various games and puzzles back in the right boxes; clear the sofas of paper airplanes, drawings, wooden spoons, crumbs etc. But tonight was more the equivalent of a trolley dash and dump in the corner of the living room.

I’ve had a great day with Sam. Today we floated to Bristol in the red and blue stripey hot air balloon; drove in the blue and silver car; played golf, football and tennis. We built and zoomed rockets and decorated Christmas trees, had a tea party and went to see the oak trees down the road. I watched Sam 'rollerblade' across the bathroom after his bath.

Bookended as ever with music, he pulled some fantastic guitar poses with his tennis racket this morning to ‘Pump It Up’ by Elvis Costello. And tonight was demanding to hear ‘Surf Safari’ by the Beach Boys. Not bad for a quiet day where we barely left the house.

Sam’s imagination and creativity seem to be coming on in leaps and bounds and I am trying to encourage it as much as possible but it’s hard to keep up with him sometimes. Last night he insisted that he had to sleep with the ‘surfboard’ he was playing with in the bath aka Granddad’s nail brush. A friend of mine very wisely said to me after I had Sam to “choose your battles”, so I decided not to fight this one. I did go and remove it once he was asleep though…

The lurgy which I’ve been ignoring all day has finally hit me and it feels like someone is treading glass into my throat. I still managed to do singing and ballet dancing to Christmas carols, read three stories and sing Sam’s bedtime song twice but I am now officially done. Now is the hour to load up on manuka honey, hot lemon and ginger with a nip of calvados, and head for bed.

I am very, very happy.

Oulipo!

Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or the workshop of potential literature was founded in 1960, and is a loose gathering of (mainly) french speaking writers. They are interested in creating works using constrained writing techniques.

I've tried two Oulipo-style writing exercises and both have pushed my writing in new directions. One produced a new character and the other a new perspective on an old obsession.

For more information go here:

http://www.oulipo.net/

http://www.nous.org.uk/oulipo.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo