A week after 1st chemo

Hi everyone. So, I won’t be adding to this in the first few days after each treatment, because I now know what my reactions to the drugs are like and it’s been a bit tough. But a week on, I can function again so I’ll try to tell you how the challenges are going.

The poems are coming on – I am struggling to retain some lines from Edward Thomas’s ‘The Glory’ because he has a whole list of questions and I get them muddled up! But I’m nearly there. I’m also considering revising my aim to write sonnets and thinking of writing at least one villanelle (look it up!) first. The form lends itself to the repetitive nature of what I’m going through – there are six stanzas (= six treatments!) and there are repeated, or almost repeated, lines which I think lend themselves to the experience. If you want to read a great villanelle, Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Goodnight’ is a brilliant example.

I’m getting back to playing the trumpet a bit and find that the major blues scales I’ve been practising in my head are almost there under my fingers (6 out of 12 so far), which is pleasing. I’ve yet to find the piano music I want to play, but it’s on the list. I’m also on a 7 day streak of Italian on Duolingo, so I really do know how to ask for a coffee, with or without milk, now! Bring on some heavy grammar – I need a fix.

For those most excited by the murder mystery, I have to confess that my research so far has been limited to re-reading Richard Osman’s books and trying to figure out why they work! The stylistics of his writing is definitely a thing (present tense, free in/direct discourse in different characters’ voices and the occasional first person diary chapter from Joyce!). I have already read some really bad examples by other writers (no names!) so I know where to pitch my efforts.

Meantime, keep those challenges coming (lesjef56@gmail.com). Lots of language-learning, art classes, sewing and craft challenges as well as more musical challenges (the harp, for goodness sake, that’s ambitious!)… Keep it going, it makes me feel happy.

More soon – time to cook my own dinner for the first time in a few days (thanks to my son and mother who have been keeping us fed through the tough days)

Lesley