juliachalkley

The Joys of Mowing

It seems to be the majority of my time in late March and early April – on the rota for mowing the grass in the community green space and spending my time finding where the key was hidden by the previous mower, lugging fuel down to refill the empty can, working out why the mowerContinue reading “The Joys of Mowing”

Sycamore Gap

The previous post was completely full up with all the goings on in Scotland – hard to believe that we were there for just two days. Northumberland took up just one full day, but I think this post will be just as long. We were watching the weather forecasts with a bit of concern asContinue reading “Sycamore Gap”

Coming Up Blank

Can my close friends look away now, please. I don’t want to bore them. But this was an absolute high point of the year, and we’re just eleven weeks in. I entered five competitions at the Scottish Association of Writers, some more as an exercise in hope than with any real hope of getting somewhere.Continue reading “Coming Up Blank”

28 Plays – Encore!

That feeling when you wake up and another month has gone, and somehow you can’t remember what you did? That’s February, in this house. I spent a large part of the month head-down at the laptop, writing plays. Not as impressive as it sounds, as they will accept even one page wonders and utterly dudContinue reading “28 Plays – Encore!”

Please, Don’t Die

Yup, slightly alarming title. I admit it was a bit scary for me, too. We went to a talk on foraging wild food on Thursday evening, and the speaker laid out a load of plants on his table and began to talk to us all about foraging. He was a little nervous, as he usuallyContinue reading “Please, Don’t Die”

No more, please, no more

I was sorry that The Literal Challenge didn’t run their Scriptly Challenge last October. I got some really good ideas from their 2021 Scriptly, and I would love to have put together the music video I wrote for Hugh Laurie’s ‘Didn’t It Rain’. When TLC announced that they would return with 28 Plays Later thisContinue reading “No more, please, no more”

Still Playing

28 Plays rolls on. Two weeks in and still keeping up – the fourteenth brief arrives at 8pm tonight, so by this time tomorrow I could well be halfway through. Which is no comfort, as they save the toughest assignments for the second half of the ordeal. Challenge, I should have said. Last week’s joysContinue reading “Still Playing”

Play for Today

Someone said to me last week; ‘Last time I looked it was Boxing Day and now it’s February! Where did January go?’ It was an odd month. I had a vicious cold just before Christmas which I passed on to himself, and which he passed back to me for a January present. I’ve just aboutContinue reading “Play for Today”

Feckless, Aimless, Pointless and Graceless

Take ten points if you recognised the quote from Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. Those are the names of the four cows under Adam’s lacklustre care, but honestly, it also describes how I’ve been feeling recently. We took down the decorations on January 5th and switched off the strings of lights decorating the garage,Continue reading “Feckless, Aimless, Pointless and Graceless”

Not Going Out

We get around to December and all our preparations for Christmas look like a siege. We declare the last shopping day before Christmas, the last trip out, the last set of Christmas cards written and posted. After that, we close the doors against the world and don’t go back out into the traffic again. We’veContinue reading “Not Going Out”