Gardening, the next writing comp and summer hols

Exciting news!!  Its stopped raining.  The problem with rain and grass is that whilst its raining you can't cut it and whilst its raining at this time of year it grows very fast.  All you can do is watch it grow and imagine the effort that's going to be needed when the rain stops.  That day came yesterday, so on went the wellies and out came the mower.  The good thing is that once the grass is cut no matter how many weeds there are in the borders the garden all of a sudden looks a hundred times better.  We still have lots of empty beds to fill with plants; some of the background shrubs have now been purchased and we have lots of previously rescued herbaceous stuff to bring down from the field so this weekend with its promise of dry weather involves lots of garden activity.  Wellies, yoga stretches (thanks to Julia Thorley) and ibuprofen at the ready.

The Alfred East Open 14 Exhibition draws to a close today, and I'm chuffed with the comments received about the photo I entered, thanks to those who gave me the comments x.  The next big thing on the photography agenda is the personal exhibition planned at the gallery for October when two photography friends and I have hired the long gallery at the AE for a month long exhibition.  So now all there is to do is create 14 beautiful images, get them mounted and ready for hanging, think about a preview evening, arrange advertising etc etc ....  Oh and raid the piggy banks in order to pay for it all.  The idea of these exhibitions is to sell something, selling enough to pay the expenses would be great because I really do enjoy the process - so here's hoping!  Here's a preview of one of the 14 ....... its a view from Neist Point on Skye looking out to the Outer Hebrides, if you look close enough you can see a couple of people standing 1,000 feet up on the cliff - its not me, don't worry.

On the writing front things have come down a little since my foray into the literary world at the Ruth Rendell event last week, and thankfully my aching feet from walking the streets of London have returned to normal.  But on Thursday with some gusto I decided at the last minute to enter a flash fiction piece, a short story and a poem to the Bridport Prize. This competition is international and has become one of the big ones with its winners ranking among the famous.  The judges this year include the poet Liz Lochhead whose work I really like - so again here's hoping!
For those interested my two short stories (Answers from Ghosts and Letter to Barbara) already on Kindle are on offer and free to download for the next few days.

The pack from Eurocamp came yesterday!  We're off to Brittany at the end of the month for week.  The two of us plus our two 6' 4" offspring in a caravan, hopefully in the sunshine.  The thing that keeps making me smile is the rule that men are not allowed to wear shorts-type swimwear going down the slides into the pools, so the speedos have to be found. The menfolk have been warned.
In the past we've always done the Dover - Calais crossing and then the long drive across, this year we're going Plymouth - Roscoff overnight - tips for an overnight ferry crossing would be welcome.

So, time to get out the wellies and forks!
Elaine x