My Note Books

Earlybird gave me this idea: sharing my notebooks with you. 

I started using a notebook on the advice of the Open University creative writing course.  I knew at once that I should have kept one all my life.  I’m making up for lost time: since starting one back in 2008 I have filled thirty-seven:

I like to cover them.  I use interesting things I find and bind them with sellotape to make the covers stronger.

My first four were rather dull:

Then I decided to have fun.  I use newspaper cuttings:

Pretty ladies:

Souvenirs of happy days:

Funny birthday cards:

Sometimes the front and back are different:

And sometimes share a theme:

They reflect my interests:

My home:

And my love:

But most of all, they combine two of my favourite things: writing and sellotape.

Mothers, Don’t Try To Educate Your Children

I love to laugh but sometimes I can’t, like when I read this story over on Parentdish. 

A homeless woman living in a van used a friend’s address to enrol her six-year-old son in school.  She faces – wait for it – twenty years in jail.  Truly, wanting to educate your child despite your circumstances is a heinous crime.

But it’s understandable, as the Mayor tells us

McDowell is no angel, having been arrested last year for possession of marijuana and having served 18 months in prison for robbery and weapons charges.

“This is not a poor, picked-upon homeless person,” he tells the newspaper. “This is an ex-con, and somehow the city of Norwalk is made into the ogre in this. She has a checkered past at best.”

That’s okay then: she’s a bad person.  Forget that she has no record of child abuse or child abandonment and is trying to do the best for her son; lock her up for life, put her son into state care, and justice is served.

My dear readers, I am sure you are as appalled by this story as I am.  Please email Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia’s office and tell him so, and blog about it yourself.  A woman shouldn’t be imprisoned for doing her duty.

Here’s Norwalk’s website: http://www.norwalkct.org/index.aspx?nid=131

And the Mayor’s contact details:  http://www.norwalkct.org/forms.aspx?FID=90

Joke 35

Q: What kind of bee drops things?

A: A fumble bee