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About Me
- Susan Harwood
- It's one of those odd things . . . I live in my little house by the sea and listen to the radio and reckon I know best about more-or-less everything . . . as I keep telling the news-casters, the policiticians and all the experts interviewed there. I shout quite loud - but I'm beginning to suspect they can't hear! Sometimes, I write to my MP . . . but there's always more to say. So, here it is!
BOOK ON A BLOG
THE BRICKS IN THE CAVE - A full length children's adventure story by Susan Harwood - click on the book to read it.
ANOTHER BOOK ON A BLOG
TIMES RHYMES - For people who want to learn 'Times Tables' the easy way!
23 comments:
Susan.. I think your on a great path.. Keep on going.. Love the posts..
Nut
http://nutmeghr.proboards50.com Homesteaders site.. and my blog is Rainbow Connections.. Thanks for Your comment..
Yes nice title. I call it 'waging peace' and the phrase in Greek on my blog is 'the banality of good' which is another way of discussing the significance of small things.
http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/search?q=saffron+walden
Nutmeg and Sibadd . . .
Thank you both for your kind comments. They really are encouraging. I do hope you will keep in touch.
Simon . . . yes . . . 'small things' are definitely important; partly in their own right and partly because of their significance when they are all put together.
Susan
Yes, like the urban cyclists who achieve critical mass in our city to encourage better ways of getting about. Or the increasing numbers of children walking to school in some places and the new people taking up allotments (and enjoying their sheds). A US sociologist said 'One's a nut, two's a minority'. Simon
SUSAN: Thanks for your comments on my blog...I'll certainly be checking out yours on a regular basis!
I like the way your posts are so short and pertinent.
Keep them coming and I'll check back regularly.
Alison
Thanks for your visit to my blog. I appreciate it. I am in the process of moving my photos to my flickr account. The link is on the blog where you were.
I used to listen to the radio during the war years. I was especially interested in Edward R. Murrow's broadcast "This is London calling" which was on every day in America. We could hear the bombs exploding int he background.
I was born in 1934 so wasn't very old during the war but we lived through some hard times then and while we had no sheds, we did have an old chicken coop and kept laying hens and old hens who didn't lay became chicken dinner. We used everything from lard to lye soap and thought we were rich.
We also planted a vegetable garden and ate was we grew. Saved seeds. It was something that might revisit this planet again one day. I think I could get through it again even at my age, but my five kids are sure to not make it. They expect too much out of life.
I think your idea for the blog is good.
Sheds and gardens have there places. So does talking and saying what you feel, however harsh it may seem.
Ross - It is really nice of you to take the time to drop comments on the blog, even though you are not in sympathy with its approach.
About your shed comment . . . although it is true that people sometimes need to say difficult things to each other . . . perhaps not everything needs to be said . . . not always? And if those difficult things simply have to be aired, perhaps a quiet time of reflection first can help in framing the most approptiate way to put them?
Susan
You miss understand me Sue. I'm very much in sympathy with you approach.
Sheds have their place and I agree with your sentiment re the need for reflection.
My step-father, JH, brought me up to enjoy sheds and later bcame quite famous for his 'shed':
http://tinyurl.com/3ckc7d
I suspect that if JC hadn't been born in a manger the next best would have been a shed. Simon
Simon
Are you really saying your stepfather was Jack Hargreaves?
'Out of Town' was an essential part of my childhood. I can't remember much of the content - but the memory of his face and the atmosphere of the programme is a part of me.
I sing the 'Out of Town' theme tune to my own children!
Yes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sibadd/sets/72157600007175240/
Wow!
My husband comes from the New Forest and remembers that Jack Hargreaves lived in the New Forest when he was a boy.
Is that where you grew up too?
Susan
We moved to Lymington in 1961 about the time I went to University. I grew up in London and Bagnor, near Newbury in Berkshire. Jack married again in 1965 and lived at several places in the New Forest until his final home Raven Cottage in Dorset.
The connotations of "the shed" are different in different places, though. In the southern U.S. it was the place kids were taken to be punished. "Out behind the shed" was where kids my parents' age were "stropped," whipped or spanked. Yuck.
Times have changed.
Sandra . . .
When I began thinking about this blog, I wondered whether it would make sense outside England.
Even within the U.K. approaches to education vary between its constituent countries. The British pre-occupation with energy comsumption isn't shared everywhere. The kind of buildings we have inherited and the kind of architecture we may develop clearly are, and have to be, different - depending on location and climate. I don't even know how many countries away from here have had cellars!
But, having thought about it, rather hesitantly, I dropped a few notes to bloggers around the world.
And I'm glad I did - because here, already, you have left a couple of very interesting comments.
Except for the catch phrase 'There's something nasty in the woodshed' - (from the novel 'Cold Comfort Farm' and which I read so long ago I can no longer remember whether there really was ever anything nasty in there) I have only ever had warm thoughts about sheds.
The thought that a shed might be seen as a place of punishment rather than a place of retreat and work and shelter gives me a kind of horror.
. . . And makes me glad I let you know about this blog - because already you have brought in a different perspective.
Thank you.
Susan
This is so true ...coming from the person who lives in a pokey little flat flat with four children. ha ha. A garden would save my family from lots of problems ....alas i can dream.
Kate . . .
I think gardens should be counted as 'essentials' when new housing is planned.
Architects / councils / planners tend to think allotments and parks cover everything we need from a garden.
But they don't.
We are fortunate to have a garden - but it is small.
So we've grown a massive, densely leaved bush and have put a bench behind it. This is our 'quiet corner'. If anyone goes there because they are cross and want to cool down, we know not to disturb them until they are ready.
The children, as well as the adults in our family make use of this. And they know they can't play there either (though they can go there to read). We all value it.
Susan
Gee, I wish I could post something simple and nice about sheds in my background, but - Sorry!
The only shed I can remember is the bikeshed at secondary school, and I suppose you all know what they say about what took place around the back of the school bikeshed?
I was never so lucky, however.
David.
Why save families?
Anthony . . .
I suppose I say 'families' because I live in one so that is what first comes to mind.
But the need for humans to take a temporary rest from each other from time to time applies in lots of different situations.
I think Anthony is just trying to provoke a response.
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