This n’ That

| TravellinPenguin
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The bus shelters have been painted to prevent the graffiti vandals in town from getting them.

This week has been a pleasant week. I have decided to resurrect our friend the Penguin that went with us to Great Britain. Both my friend and I have been missing travelling out of the house with him.

On Wednesday we caught the bus into the city for my writing group. Mr. Penguin had the car for the day for his weekly work on a farm with his friend. They work with sheep, cutting wood and storing cheese that his wife makes from the sheep milk.

We headed for our writing group at the Writer’s centre in Salamanca market. I have mentioned this group before. We are eight members of the Domain Writer’s Group. We meet Wednesday afternoons except for our break on the third Wednesday of the month. We range in age from late 50’s to low 90’s.

The assignment for today was to write a piece similar to an Aesop’s Fable. I had great fun with my piece the Fox and the Dog. Others wrote similar pieces of different styles. Each piece had a moral to the story. Everyone seemed to enjoy the session. For next week we each have a newspaper headline and need to incorporate a story around it. I will need to get onto that this weekend.

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Penguin enjoyed using his brain with the writing group.

The Penguin sat silently on the table and listened to the ‘tabled fables’ as we called them.

The following day I met a good friend at Fuller’s Book store for a coffee. Penguin also enjoyed the morning coffee chat and then spent some time with one of the staff members who is a lovely guy. He got right into the spirit of things and photos were taken. We have so much fun in this book store. They are coming on to their 100th anniversary in 2020 and I will be interested in seeing how they celebrate this long term family business.

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Nothing better than a cappuccino in a lovely cup.

As for books. Our book group met this week and we all enjoyed a nibble or a bit to drink at the Grand Chancellor hotel on the waterfront where we meet. The Penguin and I shared a light beer as I just wasn’t in the mood for anything else. We talked about the Good People by Hannah Kent. We all enjoyed it very much though some people thought a couple of loose ends weren’t sufficiently tied up and the ending might have been a bit unrealistic. Others disagreed. All who had read her first book, Burial Rites liked that one better. I have not read it yet. Typical book fare conversation. We all rated it 4 or 4.5 out of five.

Next month’s book will be Songs of a War Boy. The April book is going to be the Mothering Sunday. I have just begun listening to the audible version while in the car.  More thoughts on that much later.

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Tim is completing his PhD and working here. He keeps us all entertained. A lovely young man who is very bright.

I am currently reading Mothering Sunday, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalinithi and dipping into I, Allan Sealy; The China Sketchbook. More on each of those as I finish them. The Allan Sealy book is a sketchbook he completed on a trip to China.

Mr. Penguin and I have a 17 day trip planned to Japan. We leave the 3rd of April. The Penguin is quite excited. I might make him a kimono or something. Photos will be put on the blog. I want so much to make a sketchbook journal of this trip but I draw like a three year old. However, being of an older age and not caring so much what people think anymore (the benefits of older ages) I might just do a journal anyway with my Crayolas. It isn’t for anyone else to think about anyway and my

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We both enjoy a cold beer among friends.

three year old neighbour kids might really enjoy it. They are so non-judgemental.  I will never forget the time I drew something in my job with a group of five year olds and one of them laughed so hard at a picture of an animal I drew he had tears running down his cheeks. Then all of us lost it because he couldn’t even breathe he was laughing so hard. It was such joy to laugh as hard as these five year olds did. Well that sums up the last few days of the week. I hope your week is going well and that you enjoy the photos of the Penguin and me.

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Allan Sealy sketches like a young child too so there is hope. Love this book. (more photos of it with a review later)

17 thoughts on “This n’ That”

  1. What a lovely week, Pam. Reading and writing groups in the same week. Woo hoo. Not that I’m in a writing group though I do like the sound of yours. Are you all wanting to write novels or just have a go at developing your writing skills?

    Have you been to Japan before? Where are you going? It’s an absolutely favourite place of ours, and we’ve been three times, each for three weeks. We plan to go again.

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    1. No, we don’t want to write novels. We write little essays, poems, creative writing, short stories. It is as social as it is to improve writing. We discuss punctuation and grammar quite a bit. I have never been to Japan so we are looking forward to it very much. We usually travel on our own but going on organised trip this time with a small group. Need to get the lay of the land on the first visit. I think we will enjoy it very much.

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      1. That sounds like a lovely sort of group that might appeal to me – I have not desire to write a novel or even a short story to publish but something like you’re doing could appeal. How did you start?

        You will. Where are you going? Our first two trips were while our son was there so we spent the first half travelling with him and visiting his town while he went back to work and the second half on our own. That first trip having him for the beginning gave us enough experience to make travelling on our own very manageable. I may not have been brave enough without that little entree.

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        1. The writing group I joined called The Hobart Domain Writers group evidently has been going for decades. A small group of women, several of whom have died now. Eight of us in the group now and I am the second youngest. Oldest is 91. I don’t know history of the beginning. I joined at the invitation of a friend in my play reading class who has been in it for years (she is 89 now).

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          1. Sounds a bit like my patchwork group though I’m one of the original members. We started after a class back in 1986. I’m the youngest and one other is in her 60s, the rest are 76 to 87. We have just this year stopped meeting at nights. Such is life.

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  3. interesting bookish affairs; i’m glad Penguin is in attendance, although, being shy, i don’t imagine he says too much… we look forward to the blog pictures of Japan: exciting place! and to your drawings: you can’t be a worse drawer than me and drawings of any sort are better than photos, imo… not to say that photos aren’t good also…

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    1. The Penguin is like more people should be. A silent observer. We are looking forward to seeing Japan too as it will be different from other places we have been. Stay tuned. The drawing remains to be determined.

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  4. I too am reading “When Breath Becomes Air”. Sharon really liked it! Great story about the kids and your drawing. Hope you keep it up
    sis!

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  5. Mothering Sunday was one of my favorites last year… hope you like it! I still have Burial Rites unread on my kindle. Hope to get to it this winter. Your trip to Japan sounds wonderful!

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    1. Started Mothering Sunday and I am asking myself, ‘What is the point?’ but my friend told me to stick with it as it is one of those books you look back on at the end and say how good it is.

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