Blog – Page 14 – Nyamazela

Moldova: a little country with a big heart, lost in another time and place

Posted on 11 May, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

“I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again.”

Neither Here nor There by Bill Bryson

Soviet memories I walked into a small steamy room next to the cow shed. “Should I pack wellies?” I’d asked Hubby a week before. “No they’re having a drought,” he’d assured me.

I glanced down at my muddy shoes.

Two women looked up at us. One old, the other a young trainee. Both wore headscarfs and large aprons, their sleeves were rolled up to their elbows and they carried wooden paddles in their chapped, reddened hands. Continue reading Moldova: a little country with a big heart, lost in another time and place

Primaries, Brexit, Mayoral elections, #Zumamustfall: Do we get the leaders we deserve?

Posted on 3 May, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

“”No!” was the word that awakened us, “No!” being shouted in a man’s loud voice from every house on the block. It can’t be. No. Not for president of the United States.”

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

A tutorial for my British College of Journalism course considers the writing of columnists and bloggers:

“… the columnist or blogger presents their interpretation of what is happening in society. Ideally, readers will return each week to find out what the writer has to say. Some writers do their best to polarise their audience, with half strongly agreeing with what they say, and half vehemently disagreeing. They might do this by making controversial statements which spark outrage and debate. Continue reading Primaries, Brexit, Mayoral elections, #Zumamustfall: Do we get the leaders we deserve?

IOW: Hovercraft, Intrigue in Cowes and miles of shipwreck coastline

Posted on 22 Apr, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

Ratty, the rat from Wind in the Willow’s: “There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

alternate endings — Not my pink-nail-polished finger.

Do you remember the ‘Choose your own adventure’ books? The protagonist is “you”, and you are given choices that lead to alternate outcomes. You’d get to a certain page which said something like, “If you want to investigate the noise in the attic turn to pg85. If you decide to put earplugs in your ears and hide your head under the covers, turn to pg76.”

Not great literature, but as a recovering control-freak, I understand the temptation to try and be the mistress of my own destination/life/story. Continue reading IOW: Hovercraft, Intrigue in Cowes and miles of shipwreck coastline

Days out part 2: Libraries, secret passageways and the last Whipping Boy

Posted on 13 Apr, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

“It sounded like something in a book and it did not make Mary feel cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with their doors locked—a house on the edge of a moor—whatsoever a moor was—sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together, and it seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in gray…”

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

secret garden fulham palace — Our very own secret garden at Fulham Palace.

I looked around to see if anyone was watching. You particularly need to be careful of the room guides. Hubby had wondered off to look at another formulaic painting by Sir Peter Lely. I was safe. Between the great hall and the Duke of Lauderdale’s bed chamber I’d spotted a small door. ‘Staff only’, it stated. This, I suspected, led to a small servants’ passageway. Continue reading Days out part 2: Libraries, secret passageways and the last Whipping Boy

Be your own Activities Director

Posted on 5 Apr, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein

I had to have a photograph taken a couple of weeks ago for our company website. I’m usually the one behind the camera so this was a little daunting. Hubby did the deed because he has a fairly good eye, doesn’t mind my requests for lots of retakes and responds well to being given specific instructions. Though he took a good picture, the woman I saw staring back at me in high definition seemed considerably older than how I felt or how imagine myself to look.

Frankly, it was a bit spooky! So I made myself a cup of tea and contemplated my life. Continue reading Be your own Activities Director

Lessons from Eddie the Eagle who never gave up

Posted on 31 Mar, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

“What is courage?

As Ordinary discovered, courage is not the absence of fear; rather, it’s choosing to act in spite of the fear. You could say that without fear, you can’t have genuine courage.”

The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson

I come from a running family. My father, uncle, brother, mother, sister and many cousins run – some are serious runners, tackling marathons and off-road trail runs, some dabble in short and medium distance running. For my family, running has always been the best way to a sense of achievement in fitness, a good sweat and an endorphin injection. Continue reading Lessons from Eddie the Eagle who never gave up

Time travel and being a tourist in my own city

Posted on 24 Mar, 201625 Sep, 2018 by nyamazela

“I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air — or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.”

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
(the first of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries)

If any of you are avid readers you’ll know the feeling of being in the middle of a few novels at once, of having a pile of unread books next to your bed and a bookshelf/kindle full of #mustreads that taunt and tempt.

A couple of birthdays ago Hubby gave me the novel, A study in Scarlet. Having recently finished Stephen King’s On Writing, I rescued this little red book from the shelf last week.

It’s a small volume of the who-dun-it-crime-scene-forensic-investigation persuasion. It is set at no. 221B Baker Street, London, in the year 1887. Continue reading Time travel and being a tourist in my own city

Getting a spring in my step and a severe case of the burbles

Posted on 16 Mar, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

“Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.”

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

daffodils — It took me three attempts to name these early spring flowers in St James Park. It’s my mama and grandmama who really have the green fingers.

Almost every morning I wakeup with BBC Radio 4 news. When there is a lull in the news, I imagine the mad clamour in the news room to get hold of the latest obscure findings of some crazy new study.

Science is useful of course, but I’m amazed that our nation’s brains have the time or money, for example, to don their white coats and spend hours in a lab conducting experiments with a sofa and a remote control. Continue reading Getting a spring in my step and a severe case of the burbles

A high five to my brother and R.E.S.P.E.C.T. to teachers all over the world!

Posted on 9 Mar, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Me on Brooklyn Bridge on a school trip to New York in 2007

This last week the talk has been all about schools.

My brother flew from Zambia to London last week for an interview for a chemistry position at an independent school in the north of England.

He got the job!

There are so many ‘God-incidences’ linked to this interview, making it one of those unmistakably surreal, faith-building answers to prayer that some of us occasionally get to experience in this lifetime. What a privilege and a joy to be part of the ‘team’ to get this family of 5 to the UK – though they are not here yet and there are still quite a few hurdles ahead for them. Continue reading A high five to my brother and R.E.S.P.E.C.T. to teachers all over the world!

Your first draft has permission to suck!

Posted on 2 Mar, 201631 May, 2016 by nyamazela

Stephen king remembers adding another rejection slip to the nail under the rafter above his tiny desk in his loft room, “Then I sat on my bed and listened to Fats sing ‘I’m Ready’. I felt pretty good, actually. When you’re still too young to shave, optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Q: Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl in the toilet?
A: Because the ‘P’ is silent.

I thought this was funny!

Where am I going with this?

The lead character in Death in Paradise (series 5:3), DI Humphrey Goodman, is a stereotypical bumbling, disheveled Englishman solving murder cases on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.

He is lonely.

Encouragé by his islander colleagues (it’s a French island), he creates an online dating profile. That evening, having solved the crime, the murderer safely behind bars (cue the Agatha Christie formula), he is getting a lesson from his colleagues on how to talk to women. Continue reading Your first draft has permission to suck!