Glasses and Bird Baths

Friday was the All Write meeting at Hanley Library. I really enjoy these meetings and there is a nice lively crowd of people who attend. I like listening to them read out their work and today one of them had brought along a trial piece of dialogue and had produced four copies so that others could join in and read the parts, this certainly livened things up and was quite entertaining. I’m constantly surprised at how good people are and sometimes feel quite inadequate; their ideas for stories and poems are excellent.

On the bus home a young woman came to sit next to me, I’d seen her at the bus stop in her afghan coat and flowery head scarf, tied in a knot at the back, clutching a rather flamboyant wine glass in one hand and a huge bag in the other. I watched, fascinated as she managed to clutch the wine glass and her MP3 player in one hand whilst she struggled to break bits off a Toblerone bar with the other. She had more than one ring on every digit and more than one ring in both her ears and her nose. She saw me looking at her glass and started to explain to me how she had decorated it with suns and moons and then described the other pieces she had decorated. We had a nice conversation which whiled away the journey time on the rather overcrowded bus.

Saturday we wandered around Bakewell, popping in and out of the lovely little shops, arcades and interesting alley ways, had coffee in the café over the farmer’s market shop and walked by the river. Here we saw swans, ducks and geese with their young and a pair of coots who had decided to nest on a little ‘island’ close to the bridge and the seats where everyone gathers to eat their fish and chips or their ice creams (depending on the weather – yesterday there was a mixture of both!) We then ventured to the Chatsworth Garden Centre for lunch and here we picked up a great bird bath for only £16.99. We’d wanted one for ages to replace the one that was frost shattered last year and now we have it. Only, of course, today we have had to spruce up the garden again so that the bird bath looks good in its new home.