Pension update update :-)

Anyone who has been following the saga will be pleased to know that Alan is now a pensioner! Not that he has retired, really - he'll still be doing all his exam work - but he'll never need to set foot inside a classroom again or sit dreading the phone ringing...
What's more, they've backdated it to 9th December, which is when it should have started anyway, before NEL messed it up.
I do love a happy ending :-)

Not waving, but drowning...

Kat's posts last month about Kirkham Baths really stirred some memories! So much so, that when my course wanted me to write about a "memorable learning experience" I decided to exorcise a demon by putting it out into the public domain.

So here's what happened at Kirkham Baths, one day in autumn 1964.

Out of my depth

I was 11, a shy overweight child. It was our first school trip to the baths (public pool) for a swimming lesson. I’d never been to the baths before. We all got changed & anyone who couldn’t swim was asked to sit on the side, at the shallow end. There was only me. Along came a teacher (not our regular one). “What are you doing? Come on! Into the water with you!” So I hoisted myself off the edge & into the water… & under the water, as my legs - completely unexpectedly - went from under me. The thrashing, splashing terror seemed to last a long, long time, till a classmate came & helped me stand upright. I was crying in shock & confusion, extremely embarrassed as everyone was staring, & my knee was bleeding.
That day, I learned about buoyancy. I didn’t learn to swim until I was 18.

Why it was memorable

I remember this vividly over forty years later, because it was such a frightening & humiliating public experience.

Ginger live

A Ginger fan who went to the first promotional gig for Valor del Corazon has posted up 12 glorious minutes of Ginger live....

Thanks to HazeofPink for bringing this to my attention - roll on Rock City!

poetic nonsense

Thanks to Morning for this link to the poem generator. It's a darn sight easier than A215!

My Love
Your skin glows like the pomegranate, blossoms fickle as the bluebell
in the purest hope of spring.
My heart follows your euphonium voice and leaps like a mangabey
at the whisper of your name.
The evening floats in on a great robin wing.
I am comforted by your knickers that I carry into the twilight of effortbeams
and hold next to my thumb.
I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of brandy.
As my toenail falls from my cardigan, it reminds me of your misery.
In the quiet, I listen for the last squeak of the day.
My heated lips leap to my footwear.
I wait in the moonlight for your secret papers
so that we may moderate as one, lips to lips,
in search of the magnificient blue and mystical glass of love.

Material Girl

Got this one from Nog.

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Modernist 88% Materialist 88% Postmodernist 81% Romanticist 63% Cultural Creative 56% Existentialist 44% Idealist 19% Fundamentalist 6% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com