I’m back in the hobbit house for a couple of hours only, but had to blog because today is a day of new beginnings. The OU site for year two of the MA went live today and its my Dad’s 80th birthday though we’re not having the party till a week Saturday.

Also very excitingly,  I took both boys to school/college together this morning for the first time since reception, as they’re both now at sixth forms in Cambridge (different ones) but they’re both on the same bus route which is something to celebrate when you live in the middle of no-where like we do.

It’s also my mum-in-law’s 82nd birthday and we’re gathering friends and family early this evening for a meal and trip to the cinema which will be nice way for her to start her 83rd year.

Also, the internet is working properly, not a day too soon as we are all so dependant on it for our studies and work.

Also I do my first tutorial next week, teaching beginners flash fiction to adults at The Ivo. The head of Adult Learning has sent me handbooks to read, and lesson planners to fill in which I will work on tomorrow, so another completely new start.

The weather has come out in sympathy with all these nativities. Last night there were howling winds lashing the fen at the front of our cottage as the first storm of the autumn earned its name – Aileen. I don’t know why storms have the names they do, other than its alphabetical and alternates gender. If I were a storm, I’d want be called something more suggestive of power and motion, like Aurora or Artemis or Atom.

Anyhoo, when I took the boys to the station this morning, the village was already a hive of activity with a brace of tree surgeons picking up dead branches that had fallen in the night. The track outside our cottage is thin and there’s no room for car’s to pass, so a mis-placed branch is a proper hazard. 

She’s blowing right now, is Aileen, but only bending the trees because their dead wood has been blown away. They’re pretty noisy though, close to them as I am in the hobbit house, but its an exciting noise, full of promise not danger, a sort of herald of new thing a-blowing in.  It wont be long till the noise changes from autumnal rustling that sounds like  waves breaking, to dry tap-taps of naked branches from wintery trees like the ones above.

I know this academic year will bring challenges. I know we’ll probably cry as much as  laugh, and, if the start at one of the sixth forms is anything to go by, we’re going to have to combat institutional laziness and unsatisfactory systems, but even that will be a learning experience that will teach us something.

Of yes…and on the writing front have made many submissions and had a weird flash published at Occulum. Here’s the link https://occulum.net/2017/09/05/spin-by-jan-I’mkaneen/

I feel like the wind blown trees sound, full of life and ready to get cracking.