Back on the blog again after the dash of going back to school/college. George not entirely back to college but has done his induction for the new i-journalism course at CRC, starts properly on Monday. Not entirely sure what i-journalism is – think its a mixture of blogging, instagramming, digital photography, snap-chatting, tweeting and u-tubing with a sprinkling of app development chucked in. Doesn’t give details on website. My nephew Billy who works in PR and came to stay last week on a job in Peterborough says the Sun has an Instagram editor these days so shows what I know.

Harry went back to school last week and has been playing rugby practically every day. We had to drive to school three times even before term started for pre season training. He’s on the first fifteen this year but he’s having a tough time readjusting to being back – early mornings, long drives and newly extended school day not helping the usual reaclimatisation problems. Still I’m sure all will sort itself out in the fulness of time – anhyoo that’s not why I’m blogging – that would be because the OU website for the MA has gone live. Have decided that the focus of this blog will be to plot my progress as I try to become a better writer.

Have had a wee play on the website and it feels very daunting – the desktop is unfamiliar and seems to be a portal to room after room of stuff I need to know just to learn how to use it and the course materials! -never mind learning about Creative Writing I need to read the following first: Module guide, Forum Guide, How-to-use-the-on-line-library Guide, Assessment guide and that’s just for starters and everything’s digital so I’ll have to print them all out and read them with anotations like they used to do in the dark ages when there were only paper books (My default setting I’m afraid. I’m fine reading fiction digitally but manuals and  instructions just don’t go into my brain unless I scribble on them, read them twice, re-read them then then re-re-read them.And I have no printer here so I’m going to have to buy one and a wee table to put it on. So much to do prep-wise before I can even start learning about creative writing! But it must be done.

Tomorrow I will blog about my progress – might help secure what I’ve learned. I will also do my first OU MA site blog (we have a collective blog space where people have already started introducing themselves.) I will do the same in the morning.

Harry turned 16 on Tuesday which also didn’t help with the going back to school thing. He has such a rubbishly timed b/day – always the first week back after the longs hols – very depressing for him. I feel his pain as it was the same for me when I was a girl, only my birthday was always back to school in January after the Chrimbo holibobs – even worse if anything becuase it was back to school, freezing cold, everyone was skint, everyone was on a diet, everyone was sick of celebrating and just wanted to stay in eating gruel by themselves. On my 16th birthday I got a hairwash cos Mum and Dad were cash strapped – and that was wrapped up in old Xmas paper! So I really felt for poor old Harry and am taking him to join the gymn tonight now he’s sixteen by way of compensation. He’ll be back from school in a mo. Hoping the gymn thing will cheer him up.