Remembering Sir Terry Pratchett

Today would have been Terry's 67th birthday.

It's a little over six weeks since that awful day when I heard the news. 

I'd popped in to my mum's to check on her dogs on my way home from work, and my phone connected automatically to her wifi. It fired off about seven or eight messages in quick succession (I work in an area with a very weak signal, so this often happens when I return to civilisation).

I let the dogs out and swiped my phone to read the first message.

Oh sad news today. X

I was confused. Sad news about what? About who?

I checked the next message.

Have you heard about Terry? So sorry Lou xxx

I felt like I was about to throw up. I googled his name and there it was. I checked Twitter, just to be sure.

AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

I sat on the floor and burst into tears.

The next morning, one of my pupils came straight up to me on the playground to ask if it were true. When I said yes, she gave me a hug. I needed it.

My pupils know what a fan I am: they've heard all my Discworld stories and in-jokes, can count in Troll (one, two, many, lots) and, last year, our class novel was Truckers. (When I met Terry in 2012, I told him I was a "Pratchett-pusher", which I think he liked.) They saw how sad I was; they noticed how I've worn my turtle pin every single day since his death; they'll understand why I'm wearing a black hat today. The Turtle Moves, and it moves through every reader who loved his words.

Last week, one of my pupils, the same one who hugged me, gave me this:

 

 

 Dear Terry Pratchett,

We know you're gone. But I still wanted to wish you a "Happy Birthday".
You are a brilliant author and you will be missed.
By the way my teacher (Miss West) is your biggest fan, she also gets inspired to write books like you.
At school we've got all (most) of your books.
WE'RE ALL BIG FANS!
Hope you were here Sir Terry Pratchett.
Take care of yourself,
from Natasha
x

 

More hugs, and a tear or two. The Turtle Moves.

If you'd like to read my post from that day, you can find it here.

Run

 

Frost crept under her toes, the dying grass prickling her tanned, bare feet. The sky darkened and cast long shadows over the fields where she had played for so many cloudless, scorching days and balmy, blissful evenings. Picking up her skirts, she turned her back on the winter, leaving it far behind as she ran through the spring, laughing as she raced joyfully back into summer.

Super Sunday Sunshine and Smiles

Happy Sunday!

The sun is shining, I can hear lawnmowers and children playing in the gardens behind my house (though not together, I hope) and my laptop is fixed. Huzzahs all round!

But that's not why I'm writing today. In fact, I'm not sure why I'm writing today. Maybe it's because I've pretty much finished writing The Hungry-Man, but am still surgically attached to my laptop (which, thanks to the wizzards, now has internets again). So, prepare for a ramble while my butterfly-brain decelerates from the epic race that is writing a novel.

The Power of Dreams

... or yume no chikara, as I learnt today (that's Japanese, if you hadn't worked it out).

I've had a rather pleasant work-day today, mostly because it involved not actually being at work! Don't get me wrong- I love my job- but it was fun to do something different and take a few hand-selected cherubs off to Big School and take part in a workshop run by Honda.

After having a go at juggling, we settled down to the nitty-gritty of defining a dream. Answers varied from "what you do when you sleep" to the more inspired "something that you wish for", but for me, very simply, a dream is the thing that makes living more than just existing. A dream is something wispy yet solid, far-away yet achievable; a dream raises us from the hum-drum and lets us soar, our hearts singing with the promise of better days to come.

So far, so poetic. But, too often, real-life wakes us up with the metaphorical equivalent of a blaring alarm clock and the knowledge that you've run out of tea-bags. Real life can get in the way of dreams, and I've made excuses along with the rest.

Looking for Love

I went looking for love...
... I looked in the tiny, rough cracks in the bricks of a house older than my grandfather's grandfather
... I looked in the delicate buds of the flowering weeds that danced in a mass of wild green
... I looked in the silver-hued patterns the children's shadows made on the playground

I went looking for love...
... I found it in the rich, purple berries that were hidden behind waxy leaves
... I found it in the cold, fresh gusts of wind that lifted my hair and widened my smile
... I found it in the face of my friend as she closed her eyes and faced the sun

And, after I had found it, I held love in the space between my hand and a child's hand
My hand surrounding his
Love's hand surrounding us.
And I was happy.

Pick a part that's new

I've been working on an idea for a story. Like most of my ideas, it was a random conversation that began it and it grew in the retelling. By the time I'd mulled it over (see my previous post on procrastination) and discussed it some more over a potentially-fatal mint Aero Krushem (long story) it was fully-formed and wanting to be born. So far, so good.