Today the school children celebrated peace day. In Primary school they wear something white, or mostly white (if the children remembered to tell Mummy), and usually they go into the village centre and sing a song. At high school, the teachers try to work a peace theme into the lesson. For example, my son´s English lesson was the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
Hurrah! Alien Skin want to buy my story “Designer Genes” for their April/May 2009 Issue. It’s only a flash piece, so it’s not much money, but it’s a great start to the year, especially since it’s a magazine I really like.
The first book I picked up at work this morning gave me a bit of a shock. How was I supposed to classify that? Some years ago, I learned the Cyrillic alphabet (a long story), so I tried to sound it out. “Snekmro-phomo-memrucheskee camalog zvezd.” No help there. I tried looking inside. “Spektro-photo-metreecheskee catalog zvezd.” Spectro-photometric Catalogue Something-or-other. OK, so catalogues go under “Table and Data Books” – 522.0212. So…
Father Christmas was kind enough to bring me a new camera lens: slightly telephoto (just right for portraits), large maximum aperture (for shooting in low light, and for throwing the background out of focus), and macro capability (it’ll focus so close that I can fill the frame with a postage stamp). By my standards it was a lot of money, and I’ve been disappointed that I’ve had so little time…
I just found out that I didn´t make the shortlist for the BSFA 2008 award for non-fiction. Ah well. I’m still chuffed I got nominated. And maybe one day I will win it. You never know.
The north-west of the island is home to great many almond trees, and at this time of the year, they’re all blossoming. The trees in El Paso and Garafía are beautiful, but the best display of all is at Puntagorda. In fact Puntagorda hosts an annual almond blossom fiesta. The date varies — the Town Hall sets it a couple of weeks in advance, to (hopefully) coincide with the best…