Yesterday I got nominated to take part in the ice bucket challenge by one of my Facebook friends, so today’s adventure involved me throwing 2 buckets of water (with ice cubes) over myself 🙂 .
I chose to donate to the MND [Motor Neurone Disease] Association.
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
For the last couple of weeks “our” farm robin has been very noisy indeed! Listening to BBC Radio 4’s “Tweet Of The Day” I learned why that might be . The robin’s autumn song is distinctive, and it is very different from its song earlier in the year : the purpose of the new song is to defend its winter territories.
Robins often make their hones in hawthorn hedges and, since the farm is surrounded by such hedges, this mighty-small creature must feel at home with us!
I’ve not been quick enough to get a picture of the robin or to record its “tweeting” ~ it’s worth checking out the Radio 4 link to listen in (I expect it will sound familiar to many of you!).
So, our robin has inspired today’s poetic adventure. You can read my haiku about the robin here, and I read it out loud in today’s video-blog too.
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
Today’s poetic adventure was inspired by the honeysuckle on the side of my mother-in-law’s house : the agile shrub seems to be attempting to climb its way out of the turn of the season. It’s doing a really good job too : it’s trumpet blooms are still eye-catchingly healthy, and it’s still reaching skywards to the fading sun.
I’m really enjoying using this poetic form. It requires the creation of a dense and compressed essence , and it really helps to know a little about the element of nature you’re describing too (beyond its appearance). So, it’s encouraged me to learn more about the world around me ~ I like that 🙂 .
Today I learned that honeysuckle is also known as fairy trumpets (I can see why!) and woodbine (it winds and binds itself in the hedgerow). According to folklore, if honeysuckle grows outside your house, it’ll protect you from evil. If you bring it inside, it’ll bring wealth into the house. Although you’d think that everyone would want to take it into their house, some people don’t because they believe the sweet, pungent aroma causes “racy” dreams!
You can read today’s haiku here, and I read it out loud in today’s video-blog too.
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
Summer is coming to an end : my son has just returned from spending his school holidays with his father, and the leaves are turning on the trees.
Today I was drawn to ivy . Evergreen, it feels like something to “cling on to” as Autumn no longer lurks at the edges of the day : it’s making a confident advance. The Turning Time is striding in, blowing cool, damp breezes on the last of Summer’s embers.
In Irish folklore, ivy is associated with fidelity and immortality. Druids used to wear “crowns” of ivy to encourage clarity of thinking. The latin name for ivy is hedera helix ~ “hedera” is derived from the Celtic word for cord, and “helix” means twining. I tried to capture all these elements in today’s haiku.
You can read today’s haiku here, and I read it out loud in today’s video-blog.
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
I’ve been trying to remember Joan Aiken’s name for about 3 months, and last night I sat up in bed and exclaimed it out loud!
The reason I was so keen to remember it is that Joan wrote a book that I loved in the 1970s : it was a book of Eastern European folk-tales. The book was beautifully written and wonderfully illustrated, and I was trying to explain to an artist friend of mine the kind of feel I wanted to create in a book I was thinking about writing. I wanted to use Joan’s book as an example, but the author, illustrator and title eluded me (until last night!)
This morning, I Googled Joan and found that, although she died in 2004, her daughter, Lizza, has created a website in her memory, celebrating her life, her work and her illustrators. I was able to find the book from my childhood (and the illustrator) with ease.
The book was called “The Kingdom Under The Sea And Other Stories” and the illustrator was none other than Jan Pieńkowski . I’d call it a magic book : I don’t know where it came from, I’m not exactly sure when I got it, and I don’t know where it went. All I know is, it left a footprint that has remained after all these years.
For today’s adventure, I emailed Lizza to let her know how I had loved her mother’s book and how that book has remained with me for such a long time.
(Oh – and when I fell back to sleep , I had a dream-and-a-half! … You can hear all about it in today’s video-blog 🙂 ).
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
I was so excited about my “technological victory” yesterday, that I just couldn’t help myself today 😛 . As I was pretty certain that it would be impossible to put any kind of sign up box in the right-hand side bar of my website, I thought I’d g adventuring and see what I could manage.
And… if you tilt your eyes up to the right, you’ll see that I managed it! I really enjoyed myself working out how to do it (I feel rather pleased with myself, I must admit 🙂 ).
If you’re a WordPress.com blog/website owner, and this is something you’l like to do for your own site, then this is how you do it :
1. Go to Dashboard
2. Go to Appearance
3. Go to Widgets
4. Select and drag “Image” to the side bar
5. Make sure you already have the image you want to put into the side-bar loaded into your Media Gallery.
6. Paste the URL of your image into the appropriate box (you can get the URL if you go to your Gallery, and then click on the image ; scroll down the right hand side, and you’ll see the URL).
7. Paste the target URL (where you want people to end up when they’ve clicked on the image) into the appropriate box.
That’s all there is to it!
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
Gosh, what an adventure today has been! It’s been one of those adventures where I really wasn’t sure whether I’d manage it, but I did (and it feels GREAT!).
Today I had to think my way around a WordPress short-coming : as far as I can tell, you can’t add a sign-up box for a mailing list on a WordPress.com site. A bit of lateral thinking brought up the following solution : create an image that people can click on, and then link the image to a list management service (like Mailchimp). So, you should be able to click on the image and it take you through the sign-up process …. which it does! *Jumps-in-the-air-whilst-clapping-her-hands-and-exclaiming-a-thoroughly-British-accented-HURRAH*
My second adventure was to play with the Mailchimp process until I’d worked out how to auto-send my free training programme to those people who sign up to my mailing list. It did take quite a bit of heavy-duty playing, but I got there in the end! *Not-even-a-whiff-of-a-meltdown-from-the-former-techy-Meltdown-Queen*
Oh, and the third (I am so excited that I nearly forgot the third adventure 😛 ) was to put together the product itself! Thanks to my webinar adventures earlier in the summer, I was able to put together a 3-part training programme ; it feels fabulous to be sharing it in this accessible format .My daily adventuring has brought me so many benefits that I really wanted to spread the word about Everyday Adventuring ~ and now I’m doing it! *Smiles-from-ear-to-ear*
So, here’s me bubbling with excitement on today’s video (and do feel free to click on the image to get access to the free 3-part training ).
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
Today I received my first reply from a literary agent about my children’s story, The Faerie Thorn. It was a standard email – and it wasn’t a “yes”.
In today’s video, I explore my reaction to the email : it’s probably worth watching if you think fear of failure may be holding you back (or if you’re worried about what others may think if you don’t succeed).
The “take-away” from today’s adventure is : “failure” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be 😛 (and if you’ve got things that you really want to do, go right ahead and do them!) .. oh … and whatever you do… hold your nerve!
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
For today’s poetic adventure, I experiment with extending my range : I’ve managed to create a riddle-haiku!
The haiku was inspired by one of the old ash trees on our farm. In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil (The Tree Of Life) is an ash tree and is closely associated with one particular god in the Norse pantheon.
I wonder if you can work out which of the Aesir I am describing? (All the clues are “hidden” in the haiku 😛 ).
You can read today’s haiku here, and I read it out loud in today’s video.
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
Having camped out last night, I feel very close to the essence of the wind (it roared at me for most of the night 😛 ). To me, it sounded like a winter warning, a song of things to come ~ perfect material for today’s poetic adventure.
You can read my haiku about wind here. I read it out loud (in very windy conditions!) on todays video too.
I am just going outside and may be some time.
JT
Humans Resourced 