Blog 63 – Ways lead on to Ways … Ms Paige Turner makes an intentional error on each blog. Spot this bi-month’s error and get a free poetry assessment.*
I’m sorry this bi-month’s blog is tardy. It’s not because I was returning from five glorious weeks in Cape Town but because my laptop was comatose for the last few days of my stay.
We strongly suspected flu but Michael gave a different diagnosis. I must have pressed some odd button. I was out of action for a whole week in Fish Hoek, Cape Town with only the beach and the yellowtail to distract me. Mr Justin Case and I booked Michael from an internet café six thousand miles away. He turned up on our Beaconsfield doorstep last night and here I am to tell the tale. I’m okay, a little shaken but in working order and for those of you who send me words to assess, a new laptop is imminent and I will soon be able to receive doc x.
Whilst in Fish Hoek (and there is a Fish Avenue in Fish Hoek) – what an address to have – I met up with the lovely Fish Hoek Scribblers and then I was off to Milnerton to lecture ‘Writing Your Life Story’ to West Coast Writers. I don’t know if it’s the Table topped Mountain or something in the air over there – but I love being with these writers in Cape Town. I bought a book in Kalk Bay – with ‘Writers I have met and liked’ on the front and some writers have started to jot some words therein. I’m going to build a collection.
I’ve met and taught writers from aged 10 to aged 98 and they all teach me. I met Kools last week. She and Sim and Earl are starting a theatre company at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation in the township of Masi. I found myself in the privileged position of ‘consultant’. Kools and Sim and Earl re-ignited that excitement I felt when I started the first of my three theatre companies in 1978. It was the Ruddles Theatre Company and I found myself in Rutland counting sheep. Months earlier I had been lecturing Voice in Montreal but you get it … ways lead on to ways as Robert Frost wrote. There was a major turning point in my life and though I meant to return to Canada, I never did.
My second company – better than the first was A-One, and so we were, but ten years ago I was inspired by a group of young people to start Creative Ink for Actors. And this Saturday we are celebrating our 10th Anniversary and our 9 productions.
Earl, Sib, Kools – if you have a tenth of the joy I’ve had with Creative Ink actors and techies (and in their time they have been very, very naughty) then you will have a ball. I gave Kools a handwritten copy of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ – I had been lecturing ‘Writing Your Life Story’ remember? She accepted it with the same gratitude as if I had given her 20,000 Rand. May your way lead on to a gleaming path, Kools and Creative Inkers, I look forward to seeing you all this Saturday and finding out about your pathways.
Only one place left on Thursday am ‘Get that Book out of You’. Tuesdays full.
‘BLACKBERRY PROMISES’ available on Amazon – £6.99 – please post a review.
In erratum – Elizabeth Glanville wrote ‘The Imaginist’ available on Amazon – not Beth Glanville.
* Must be taken up within six months.
Hi Jan. Very enjoyable Blog read. Read it thrice I liked it so much. Full of the joy of writing and the pleasures shared. Could it be that you have just slightly misquoted dear Mr Frost as your teasing porkie-pie?
An ‘s’ here and another there can quickly make the singular plural turning ‘way leads on to way’ into a multiple choice ‘ways lead on to ways’.
Frost lived in Beaconsfield (or should that be stayed?) for a short while. But, of course, you knew that.
Have a great time on Saturday night for the Creative Ink for writers shin-dig. I’m sorry not to be able to join you.
Where do I send the tenner to put on your charity gee gees this Saturday night?
I was suggested this web site by my cousin. I am not sure whether this post is written by him as no one else know such detailed about my trouble. You are incredible! Thanks!