Colour blind

Hindsight is always 20/20

Plans that were plans have changed, again and again they keep changing, and will the world ever stop spinning. My motto for today: look for the small joys in the big universe.

I always see colour first when I look outside. I don't notice the birds or the clouds or the hidden windows with secret affairs behind them. I notice the green leaves for summer finally starting to appear and the sky the colour of rain withering away. I wrote a short poem using colour as its base... nature is colour and colour is what we see. I value sight above all my other senses, I would rather be deaf than blind - not so far from the truth as only one ear can hear nature cry out to be saved.
If anyone follows these blogs, leave some feedback - much appreciated

Colour cliché

I have not the strength to be red
I have not the feeling to be green
I don’t want to be black
I don’t want to be blue
I am not bright enough to be yellow
Or pure enough to be white

The earth is no longer pure enough to be white
Anger has made you red like fire
The sun lights up the earth with yellow spray
Money is green, colour of rich snobs
Like the ocean at night instead of blue
When all the lights go out it is black

The black of night can scare you
The white can be clean but empty
Like the ocean can be vicious bright blue
The red of passion can make you burn inside
When green is stolen it makes them sad
The sun can blind you


The sun will always rise and shine again
Blackness can fade with morning
Nature can be green when fed right
There is always a pure heart somewhere
Red can be nurtured and softened
The blue can be crystal in daylight


No need to be lost at sea
The sun shines and promotes happiness
Red is the colour of fire but also of love
No need to be submerged in blackness
As my white dress is laid out over the snow
No need to be green with envy


Flowers flourish around me
I have found the blue eyes I can melt in
Pure as his heart is
Yellow daffodils show the first signs of spring, a new start
The blackness no longer consumes me
Crayon hearts on the cherry trees


Red and green should always be seen
That beautiful rainbow blinds me
The sun so bright it glows white

Why do I write?

For the housewife and the businessman
The elderly and the children
The architect artist and musician
Desperate to let them breathe

Breathe life into the body, the voice
That with time has faded
And with luck will jump back out again
No longer worn and jaded

The first real person to offer not force
Something I knew was valued
My mother from whom I could absorb
Her words that were not a jumble
Her love, her honesty, her compassion
Her helpfulness and lack of apathy
Helping create my characters, their personality
My first heroin in a child’s story
At the age of 7 I wrote ‘Sophie and the strange house’
A protagonist who started out as quiet as a mouse
She ventures out into the new world
Taking her own steps rather than be hurled
Fed from Duffy to Canavan, Sarasate and Mozart
The ideas took hold and flowed like paint
The canvass was paper or the back of my hand
Whatever was closer, no need to be grand
Even sitting staring at a wall
Can bring something colourful, no need to call
Shout out for inspiration, except when it got stuck
The passageways blocked in the ground and the muck
Just a little bit of digging out of the ground
Free my mind and let it expand

It is needing a way to communicate
With the outside world without becoming a pompous ass
I realise it’s a difficult prospect
And some fail in the attempt at selflessness
I am eight thousand six hundred and so many days old
And I have plenty more to spare
For what I want and what I need
I need to write, I want to share

Why do you write? Come on tell me

all that matters to me at the moment is that i enjoy life for more than its worth. life is worth shit unless you can really appreciate whats happening at this procise moment. For me its being prepared for my third year of uni and making sure the place is clean and tidy to prevent any growth (ive seen kin and aggy- YUK) and taking up any opportunity to enjoy myself and get out and about.

What colour are you?

In times of need we struggle to find
the things that make our minds tick
the world around is already defined
it really makes me sick

University is a great choice for me as it gives me the creative flexiness i need but the long periods of time where i am just reading makes my mind wonder and i see that unlike some places, stoke is not exactly the hub for originality and creative expansion. Clones walking round the streets dressed in different colours of the same shirt and shoes that will give then flat feet and bumps in their late 40s. There are some good things though but you have to look for that small peice of beauty in a giant field on green. Green is a colour of nature but it is also the neutral colour - why be neutral when you can be so many other colours?

A message to you all

If there is no beat then there is no rhythm. If there is no rhythm then there is no sound. If there is no sound then there is no music and if there is no music then the world will fall into the black hole of silence and never recover. Music is how you know your alive.

I am a music lover, very few music artists and bands rename nameless to me and there is still time yet for me to learn and get to know them. A little blend of everything is what we need. I sit quietly listening to the birds after the rain on a cool evening in March and ask whether you can love purely based on someone's personality, does it matter how they look, how they dress, what opinions you drew when you first caught site of them whether good or bad. Music explains so much better than ordinary words how we feel, it has a depth to it that ordinary conversations and words don't have unless you have the gift of a writer. My gift is buried but I will retrieve it. Words are the surface and the music is what is beneath and needs to be released, like a persons personality can be drawn from then slowly but some cant be bothered and merely look at the surface of things and don't see what is on offer.

I have a talk for you all: Be willing to delve a little deeper, travel a little further, always try something new and never be afraid to turn back.

Today is turmoil.

I have been questioned as to whether I'm up to the task of doing a degree - a realisation that people are pondering now I'm heading into the 3rd year of my degree in September. I want to do it, I have all the will and determination to do it but does my body.

I am split in two now, My illness and my degree. I can't get rid of either but I cant keep the illness under enough control to get the best out of the degree and my work is suffering but I am hoping that the Summer might being out some positive things in me and I wanna do more, get out more, see more, write more. I do not want to be the person who gets bogged down and stays at home because my body wont let me enjoy life for what it is. CARPE DIEM!

I have hope, some believe I have too much hope and that it will fail me...true? I Hope not.

Come on world show me what I can do.

Level 3 will pretty much define my grade. I let my illness get the better of me once, I can't let it happen again. I know that only I can keep me going, no one can do it for me.

To all those that are out there who are supporting me...you know who you are...I've thanked you over and over and here is one more thank you. xxx

The three bears

Well I forgot to pick up my book from the library I reserved but through no fault of my own. I had a minor episode of illness in the afternoon, obviously I wasn't as recovered as I had thought but the first aider, my tutor and my friend were all there to support me for which I thank them immensely. Now that I am home and resting I see that maybe an extra day of rest would not have done any harm but patience is a virtue I cant seem to keep hold of.

On the up side I handed in the fairy tale though it wasn't mentioned during the presentations so I will simply present it after Easter to the tutors along with the editing report. Next up is the essay I need the book for that I will now have to pick up tomorrow but I can make a plan tonight.

Here is my version of The three bears ... enjoy...comments are always welcome

Upon entering the house with her own key, the little old landlady by the name of Mrs Redberry took a look around the cottage and made sure everything was in order. She sniffed towels to make sure they were clean and ran her finger along the fireplace. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the dirt that blackened her fingers. While she was looking around her stomach began to grumble and so she went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She found three Tupperware boxes inside, one labelled Paul, one labelled Mandy and one labelled Babs. She opened the first one to sniff the contents.

‘Yuk, curry!’ she exclaimed and promptly threw the container onto the counter spattering curry on the tiles. She then opened the second box and stuck her nose in.

‘Oh good heavens, salad!’ she exhaled loudly and threw the container next to the first on the counter. Then with some hesitation she opened the third container and peered inside.

‘Ooh, meatloaf!’ She smiled broadly and trotted over to the microwave to heat up the food before grabbing a fork from the draining board and eating the meatloaf until it was all gone leaving a trail of gravy from the kitchen to the dining room.

Now Mrs Redberry’s tummy was full. So after dropping the empty container in the sink she waddled into the living room, she needed somewhere to sit down. First she sat in the large armchair in front of the TV, but after wriggling around a bit she could not get comfortable and grumbled as she moved to the sofa. This was better but so soft she felt like she was sinking into the cushions and had to grab onto the arm to pull herself back up. Feeling fed up she flopped onto the beanbag in the corner of the room, after a few seconds she relaxed and leaned back. She smiled feeling much better and began to thumb the pages of the magazines on the table next to her.

Pretty soon Mrs Redberry began to yawn and her eyes were so heavy she could hardly keep them open. So she got up and in her clumsiness dug her nails into the beanbag and burst the material spilling beans everywhere, she sighed, too tired to care and headed down the hall and up the stairs to the bedrooms.

Yawning again loudly she pushed open the first door she came to and looked inside. Sticking her head into the room she quickly began to cough and pulled her head out into the hallway.

‘What a disgusting man’ she exclaimed ‘how on earth can he live like that?’ Mrs Redberry slammed the door and proceeded to the next one. This one had a pretty flower on the front and Mrs Redberry smiled briefly before entering. She made her way to the bed and sat down but as she looked around she could feel a headache coming on. The room was bright pink and purple and was hurting her eyes. This was not doing her mood any good at all.

Heading for the last room at the end of the corridor she could feel her eyes getting very heavy. She went to push the last door open but found it locked. In a fit of frustration she stepped back and kicked the door hard. The knob dropped off and the door flung open to reveal a simple bedroom with a large bed covered in clean white sheets.

‘Finally’ Mrs Redberry sighed and sat on the bed, kicking off her muddy shoes and after taking the pins out of her greasy hair she lay back on the bed and soon nodded off.

Not long after this the occupants of the house came back in their car and pulled up in the driveway. At first they didn’t know anything was wrong. They opened the front door and took off their shoes and coats but upon entering the living room Mandy gasped ‘what on earth has happened here?’

Paul went into the kitchen and immediately spotted the dirty dishes on the counter and the trail of gravy leading to the dining room ‘Who has eaten my dinner?’ he roared and stomped into the living room where he found Mandy pointing at the beanbag in the corner ‘well someone has been sitting on my beanbag and broken it, it’s going to take me forever to clear this up’.

Both Paul and Mandy followed Babs upstairs to check out the rest of the house and soon found Mrs Redberry snoring on their friend’s bed. ‘Someone is asleep on my bed’ Babs cried ‘and it’s our landlady’

Paul pushed passed the two girls and shook Mrs Redberry by the shoulders until she woke up.

‘Good gracious, what’s happening?’ Mrs Redberry rubbed her eyes and tried to focus on the people standing by the bed. ‘Oh...Hello...I’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Mandy said

‘I told you I wouldn’t sell you this house if you didn’t look after it’ huffed Mrs Redberry ‘and I’ve come to find that the fireplace is filthy and there’s leftover food in the fridge. The bedrooms smell disgusting and there’s no alarm to stop intruders getting in, how can I trust you?’

‘Most intruders don’t have their own key’ Babs put in and nudged Paul on the arm. ‘Don’t worry we shall sort everything out, won’t we Paul’ She grinned and proceeded to help Mrs Redberry up from her bed.

After dinner, Paul, Mandy and Babs sat back in their dining room chairs and gave a satisfied sigh.

‘That was the best meal I’ve made in a while’ Babs smiled. ‘Much better than the last time I cooked’

‘I dunno, that meatloaf was pretty good too’ Paul said, rubbing his bloated tummy and taking a sip of the red liquid in his glass

‘What’s for dessert?’ asked Mandy getting up and clearing away the plates

‘I don’t think I have room for dessert’ said Babs ‘Put the rest in the fridge Mandy we’ll finish it tomorrow’

Paul yawned ‘Time for bed I think’ he rose from his seat and headed for the stairs. Half way up he turned back and called out to Babs ‘I hope the next intruder comes soon, I do so love to watch you cook up a storm.’

Word count: 1055 (C)

to go forward or back?

Up until about 1pm this afternoon I fully believed that the clocks had changed and that we were officially in BST instead of GMT. Then of course I realised I was wrong but the recent sunny weather has confused my head and made me believe it was indeed spring. Hopefully tomorrow I might actually be able to venture out into the sun now that I am feeling better.

As for Uni assignments, everything is still running smoothly. Time has allowed for planning and my next assignment is a 1000 word essay on a book I enjoyed reading 'The Awakening'. The problem here is that I want to get started on this essay but keep going back to the previous one. As with everything I write, I keep trying to go back to the modernised version of The three bears and make the landlady more gruesome or messy or the ending more clear when the house mates eat her for trespassing but I think in doing this I've realised another error I make when writing shorts. I don't give the reader enough credit and end up spelling everything out for them. I think my solution is to post it here and get some public opinion - after I've handed it in for assessment that is - which is tomorrow. EEK. Tomorrow I'll pick up the book I need for the essay and get stuck in - promise.

One other thing I have found today that is worth mentioning is a website that one of my lecturers has been published on and I reckon it's worth a read. Ill ask him first but if its OK ill post a link and let you judge for yourself.

my moto for this coming week 'Everything will be ok' :-)

p.s 8.54pm - With permission here is the link to the website mentioned above.

http://www.laurahird.com/showcase/paulhoughton.html

The other writing is worth a look too.