Thankful for: poetry, packing and punctuation

I'll just dive right in.

Mini-mini break

Last Saturday night we went to a friend's place - which right now happens to be a chalet in a holiday park in Hayle, as his family own and run it. Even though we were only there for a little over 12 hours, it was still great to get away, spend an unhurried evening with friends (and plenty of food and wine and Settlers of Catan - which is also on my list of things I'm thankful for!) and wake up to views of the sea and sand. Not having a car means we don't get around this beautiful part of the world enough at the moment. But determined to make more effort and use those infrequent buses and trains!

Packing

Who would have thought this would be on the list. I usually hate packing, but I've got to say that doing the capsule wardrobe thing definitely helped a lot because there was a whole lot less to choose from. I've still not finalised my number of items because this week was so busy but I have a lot less stuff kicking around. This is pretty much everything packed for a week away; I'm quite pleased with myself!

Passionate about punctuation!

Whilst doing some editing for a website, I kept coming across quotes written with the final full stop inside the speech marks, which bugged me but I realised I wasn't 100% sure of the right way to do it. So, thanks to Google, this is what I found on the Sussex University website, at the bottom of a very long page all about the rules of using speech marks:

You may follow your own preference in this matter, so long as you are consistent. If you opt for logical punctuation, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are on the side of the angels, but you should also expect some grim opposition from the other side.*

Haha! Love it! Partly because I am apparently on the side of angels (the logical side being placing the full stop outside the quotation mark), and partly because I love it when people are passionate, even if it is about punctuation :-)

*http://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/quotes/marks

Friends, reunited

No, not that website (which I haven't heard mentioned in a long time!). This week we drove across the country once again for Llewellyn's university interview at Hertfordshire. Hire car issues and both of us being knackered meant we appreciated even more being put up by lovely friends that we don't get to see often enough.  A reminder again of how important hospitality is (I've just spent night in third place in three nights) - and that while it may look different, the key is being made welcome.

And, I'm very thankful for friendships that survive moves around the country and many years and changes. Woop!

Poetry

Yesterday I went to a Ted Talks event in East London, which I might talk more about another time. At the end three poets performed and I was struck once again by the power of spoken word, of imagery, of cutting straight to the 'truth' of things whilst simultaneously leaving plenty of space for unique interpretation and space to dream.

Here's one of my favourite performance poets, who I've been listening to again this week. Enjoy :-)

PS

Hubby got offered a place at the University of Hertfordshire. I'm very proud!!