Blunders and beauty in your Heyday Friday newsletter
A beautiful new book, how to avoid certain mistakes and what can be learnt from others, plus an entertainingly charming TV recommendation in this week's newsletter
I’ve never been someone who felt they had a book inside them burning to be written. Have you?
In spite of being an award-winning lecturer at Western Colorado University teaching writing and literature (as well as environmental studies) for nearly three decades, Shelley Read took until she was in her mid-fifties to realise her long-held dream of writing a book of her own.
And what a book it is. Heart-breaking, tender, evocative and fiercely vivid.
To find out why I enjoyed Go As A River so much (and as you can probably tell, I really, really enjoyed it) and why you’ll never take the pleasure of eating a peach quite so much for granted after reading it CLICK HERE.
In the meantime, here’s a taste (boom, boom) of the gloriously described Colorado landscape that is both the setting for the story and, in its way, one of its protagonists.
And here, via an example of the typically beautifully crafted lines from the book, are some of the myriad
WORDS OF WISDOM
to be found in it (That’s Shelley in the pic, by the way)
Learning from your blunders and using them to create something new and interesting is something Heydayer John knows all about.
Find out how he deliberately makes his mistakes part of his creative process by CLICKING HERE
SMART SAVE TIP OF THE WEEK
In THIS BLOG I wrote a couple of weeks ago about all of us urgently needing to get better at buying less, particularly when it comes to fashion, I referred to swapping as a way of acquiring new-to-you clothes without buying them.
Well last night, I went to my first clothes swapping event and I’m now even more enthusiastic about this as a way of giving your wardrobe a boost.
What I also realised was that there are key things you need to do to make a clothes swap work and avoid any potential blunders (that word looks increasingly weird the more you type it. But I digress).
So should you be planning to do one yourself, here’s what I learnt:
Ask your invitees to bring only decent quality items in good condition. A clothes swap isn’t an opportunity to get shot of stuff that’s less than its best.
Shoes and accessories (with the same condition conditions as above) also make good swaps.
It’s best to have a maximum limit on the number of items each person can bring.
As each person arrives, give them a ticket with a number on it corresponding to the number of items they’ve brought.
If you can, provide rails and hangers. It’s harder to rummage through items heaped in a pile. (You can also ask people to bring their items on hangers)
Provide at least one full length mirror
Explain to everyone exactly how the swap process will work (see below). Manage their expectations before they start, that they MIGHT not get the item they want if more than one person is interested in it, so that if that does happen they’ll hopefully be less disappointed.
Give everyone a period of time to look through and try on anything they’re interested in. But don’t let them take any items until everyone has had time to do this.
At a given point, start the swap. Each person can only take away the number of items they brought, so when they’ve made their selection, check their numbered ticket against their chosen items.
Hopefully the items each person wants won’t have been nabbed by someone else, but be prepared for this to happen and to encourage (or, if necessary, adjudicate) a reasonable settlement between the swappees.
Be prepared to take any left over items to charity afterwards.
THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN……WATCHING
This delightfully funny, at times touchingly profound, Australian comedy drama is about a group of disparate singletons at very different life-stages, who club together to buy a house. And then work out how to live in it together whilst navigating the challenges of their own lives and relationships.
You quickly become invested in kind-hearted but clueless builder Ben with an unexpected past, fierce lawyer Liz who’s life is less perfect than it seems, gay doctor Harry struggling with revealing his sexuality to his deeply traditional Indian mother, sharp-tongued yet sympathetic care home worker Heather, determined to extricate herself from her dull husband and over-dependent teenage sons, and unstintingly kind estate agent Ainsley who never fails to fall headlong for the wrong guy.
(Full marks if you spotted that that’s five bios and the the pic above has six people in it. You’ll find out what part the guy second from the right plays in the story when you watch it.)
There are misunderstandings, cultural and lifestyle clashes, and plenty of the sort of challenges you’d expect when five such different folk, each at a crossroads in their lives, come together under one roof. But there’s also kindness, understanding, support and plenty of humour as the protagonists and a wide cast of supporting characters, tackle issues and experiences that we can all relate to.
I’ve just finished watching series one, and am relishing the fact that there are two more to enjoy and apparently a fourth in production. I’m certain you’ll feel the same.
You can watch FIVE BEDROOMS on Amazon Prime
And see the trailer for Series 1 HERE
Finally, and talking about blunders (see what I did there?) here’s a
FRIDAY FUNNY
which shows what the mistake could well have been that led to the disappearance of the dinosaurs. Just saying…
I’m finishing this before heading off to see Abba Voyage (the avatar Abba concert in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year). To say I’m excited would be an understatement. I had a sing-along-a-Mama Mia screening for my 50th birthday at which my sisters and I - one of whom I’m seeing the show with - performed Dancing Queen, complete with dangerously inflammable silver flared jumpsuit costumes.
Sadly there will be no repeat of the dressing up (the outfits were returned to the hire company along with our rainbow platform boots, immediately after our triumphant performance) but I can guarantee we’ll be singing along just as enthusiastically with all the numbers.
I’ll report back on it all next time. Bet you can’t wait.
Until then this is this dancing queen signing off. Have a great week.
The books sounds wonderful, for a change I have ordered a hardback copy instead of downloads.