sabbatical Thursday

Writing group tonight was all about images and one of mine was this selection of stripy socks seen in a Mayfair shop.

Feel more like myself today after three days of adjusting to a life without going to work. No I am not ill or on holiday - I am definitely in transit. I have been writing and reading poetry today which felt like such a luxury. I am working on the poem about an ice cream van that I began on St George's day. The theme was England and as I had just heard the first chime of spring, that's what inspired me. Planning to publish it on the cryptwriters website when it is finished and will be chasing icecream vans to get a suitable image to accompany it. Icecream vans evoke so many memories of childhood. High days and holidays always meant icecream and if lucky a crumbling chocolate flake and that red juicy stuff that dripped from the whipped folds of cream.

Just watched a programme on BBC4 about Sylvia Plath's Yorkshire poetry. Very enjoyable as it was filmed in an area I know well - the North Yorkshire moors. It was good to hear this neglected area of her output given an airing and I enjoyed the glorious photography and, once I was used to it, the super-imposition of the words onto the landscape. I particularly enjoyed hearing Wuthering Heights with scenes of Bronte's Top Withens, which is said to be the inspiration for Heathcliff's house.