I saw this at noon today. I shouldn’t have - I should have been doing a BC Haven Online Zoomy thing but, despite Dennis asking me very intently if I had anything online booked for today, I blithely said no. Ooops. Anyway, my good news:
This has become known as Microgate this month. It’s a monthly competition. A prompt is provided and the task is to create a stand-alone story of exactly 100 words. I haven’t entered many as they were introduced when I was ‘ill’ but the photograph this time caught my eye and I created A Dead Man’s Thesaurus (should have been Dictionary but, hey, poetic licence). All the shortlisted stories were incredibly depressing, mine included as you could guess from the title, but the photo was bleak, a b/w image of a filthy sort of porthole, set in thick concrete, with some kids walking by on the other side and some astronomic markings, both of which I ignored. I found the congratulatory email in Junk at 6.30 tonight!
Anyway, it’s a bit of a poisoned chalice. First, someone was found to be cheating - they’d emailed all their contacts with their title and asked them to vote, so the competition was going to be cancelled but was rescued by Twitter. Result, the offending story was removed. Sadly, it was the one I voted for. The hilarious thing is, when it was announced in horror that someone had cheated, I immediately felt guilty. What had I done? I can feel guilty just passing a policeman! Then it got better. The voting is public and there’s a list of the titles, you click on your choice; sorted. Only this month, every time you refreshed the page, you could vote again. You could also vote on multiple devices if you wanted so this made a mockery of the votes. I emailed them to alert them to the problem and it was fixed to some extent. Maybe I won for being the swotty telltale lol.
I’m in the early stages of a writing course I paid for almost a year ago! It was due to start this Spring but... so we swapped 3 days of 4 hours in a café in Harrogate for 6 x 2 hours over Zoom. It started with the very basics, which I’m comfortable with and homework was to write 1000-1500 words, a story inspired by something in the paper. I found an incredibly beautiful photograph in the i, promoting a photography book, and was inspired to write... yes, more death (or almost). I think I’m terrified of having to write romance. I was scarred for life at school. We’d been given a homework to write a short romantic story. I missed the lesson for some reason and when I came back, the teacher read the best one to the class - it was straight from a teenage magazine I read. 17? I can’t remember. I do remember the girl who wrote it because she indirectly caused my humiliation when, having adapted a story from Woman’s Own, I got taken aside by Mrs Friend and castigated for cheating. I could hardly say “But X took her story from 17” could I? There you are Lesley, another memory. I can even picture the classroom. Mrs Friend was very good at the icy, cutting down to size bit. I modelled myself a bit on her!
Things are looking up on the Let’s Check Janet front. A breast care nurse rang me and she’s ringing in 3 weeks to see what progress has been made and chase things up if I don’t have appointments. I am seeing a real, living, breathing rheumatologist on 5th. If they discharge me then, at least they will have seen my symptoms rather than diagnosing over the phone. I’ve also (cause for hilarity) got a phone Physio assessment, after which an exercise programme is planned and you learn what to do from YouTube videos. The world of medicine is changing!! Apparently, there’s another oncology letter from Dr S to arrive, with several things to be actioned by my GP. Well, good luck there, considering it took 6 weeks to get a simple blood test.
Tomorrow I’m doing part 1 of a short online course run by the Haven on Working Through Change and Transition. I know the answer is more exercise but, at this rate, it will be exercise 9 - 5! I’m looking forward to it though, certainly the meeting up with others in the same boat, even if it is through Zoom. I’m getting quite adept but I still can’t manage to achieve the tropical background effect.
To complete all I can remember, I’ve posted on the BreastCancerNow forum for recommendations for shampoo. My hair is getting thinner by the day and my temples are receding like Dad’s. HELP!!!
OMG I wouldn’t usually nick a photo but this is spot on,
except of course my hair is white and almost transparent
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