Anyone want a Christmas poem? I wrote this a considerable number of years ago when the kids were at primary school. Home-made Nativities just hit the heart, don't they?
Angel Hems by Jan Jones
Today the sky is dark, clouds lie in wait
I’m sewing tinsel for an angel hem
The first drops hit me as I reach the gate
At school and wonder why it’s always them
Who’ve lost their gloves and bags and by the way
We should have had our stuff - I try to stem
The flood of petty grievance of their day
And shield them from the rain slant-driving down
As Mary shielded Jesus in the hay
Did she know then that he would wear a crown
Not like my son’s, all glitter and gold paint
As fits a King, but thorns and greeny-brown?
She must have known, but put aside the taint
Of things to come by calling him a boy
Like any other. Oh no, not a saint -
Just Jesus bringing visitors and joy
Just Jesus asking questions to make sense
Just Jesus with a woolly lamb his toy.
To make the barn they’ve borrowed someone’s fence
My daughter’s tinsel snags the cardboard stall
.... the Natal magic smooths away pretence
Small wonder that He railed against the call
From Christmas, Easter is no time at all.
(By the way, there's a special term for the form of this poem. I can't remember what it is for the moment, but I'll look it up and post later. Unless anyone else gets in first, of course!)
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Excellent! The RNA party season has started already!
The longlist for the Romantic Novel of the Year 2008 has been announced. Shame there aren't more of my pals on it (partisan, moi?), but I do spy my chum Kate Lace in her debut outing in her new persona (she's more generally known as Catherine Jones, or "mine's a large red, please").
Next will be the Romance Prize (category romance) shortlist, some time in the New Year. And then the RNotY shortlist announcement in mid-January.
And then the Awards Lunch! I'm salivating at the very thought.
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Done it. Wrote 'The End'. Oh, the relief.
Nope. I know I've got this lot to deal with, but there's only one chapter to go until I've finished the first draft, so nothing Christmassy is being done until I've got the hero and heroine to their happy-ever-after.
And then I'll have all that writing, posting, buying, wrapping, stirring, decorating time to revolve in my head how the heck I'm going to unpick the wretched thing to make it into the book it's supposed to be.
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Whilst browsing racing prints for my Regency work-in-progress, I came across this one by Henry Alken from 1802.
Look closely at the leading jockey. Is it me, or is he trying to text and ride at the same time?
As Louise Allen commented to me, convincing proof of time travel!
(PS You can click on the picture for an enlarged view)
Aaarrgghh!
Never, repeat never, forget to take your reading glasses with you to the library when you want to do some research.
I have just written an entire strand of of my only-two-chapters-to-go-until-I-reach-the-end Regency based on the assumption that Lady Jersey owned racehorses.
Wrong.
The tiny black abbreviation Ld stands for Lord not Lady.
LORD Jersey owned racehorses. Lord Jersey who wouldn't in a million years have inveigled my hero into investigating a tiny matter of race-fixing.
No prizes at all for what I'm thinking right now.
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