I really like Julia Cameron’s advice in The Artist’s Way, to set yourself regular time out, to do things that rejuvenate your creative spirit. And of course like a great many of us, it’s my ‘time out’ that is too often sacrificed when family life takes over. But I think I can go straight to the top of the class this September, because what I need to make time for, are opportunities to grab a little culture, and so far this month, I am doing rather well…
Half way through September and I have…
Been to the Poetry Book Fair and met the brilliant Fancesca Kay (Whatever you’re planning for your garden next season, I wholly recommend obtaining a packet of her Garden Seasons – poems for year round colour & interest)
The daughters and I have strolled around the British Museum. Both daughters were overawed by the Ancient Egyptian artefacts, big and small.
Number 2 daughter successfully navigated our way from the BM to the Victoria & Albert Museum – not bad for a thirteen year-old who can still number her trips to London on the fingers of two hands.
We’ve also been to Bath. Trust us to decide to go at the same time as hoards of Jane Austen reenactment enthusiasts – it was vaguely surreal passing men and women in full Regency gear chatting on their mobile phones. Although watching them dancing in the Assembly Rooms was wonderful – practically stepping back two hundred years.
We also made our pilgrimage to Bath’s girlie paradise, Alexandra May – I’m not sure you can classify this as culture, but it certainly gives me enormous pleasure, and the girls will happily spend an hour working their way along the displays (NB: not suitable for the Other Half, well not mine anyway, he has to go off and do Man Things…)
And once we’d soaked up plenty of Georgian architecture (and played the compulsory family game of crazy golf – I lost it on the last hole, grrrrrr!), we headed off to Lacock Abbey, once famous as the birthplace of photography, then probably more famous for being a Harry Potter film venue.
The village is being promoted for its many film credits, although for those of us of a certain age, it will always remain Longbourne, from the 1995 TV series of Pride & Prejudice (the Colin Firth, wet-shirt version).
So, lots to keep me going for a week or two. And when I’m not gadding about being a culture vulture, I’m tucked up at home with my eBay find – an Old English textbook – (that’s a textbook on OE, not and old English textbook – somehow I imagine I’m going to have to brush up my grammar).
Hope your September is shaping up nicely.
-)O(-
PS: Just so you know, if you’re seeing any adverts on my blog, it’s WordPress, not me putting them there. If I’m feeling flush one of these days, I’ll go ad-free, until then, please forgive.
Mostly Motley 