Hi there!
This week the boys are back at school, so it’s just me and the wee girly. This means much less refereeing and a chance to really get my flow on with the writing.
For the last week, I’ve been researching and writing about the Prince Regent’s outrageous eating habits and horrifyingly dangerous toys for kids. It’s been incredibly interesting and pretty shocking when it comes to the kid’s toys, especially when I actually remember a couple of them.
I’ve also been writing about the act of being present with the children despite the busy world around us.
Blue moons
Did anyone else see the super blue moon? I did and she was beautiful.
We went outside sometime before midnight and she was framed by the trees in the meadow, sitting there gloriously round, bright, and fat in the sky.
We basked in it a bit and spoke a little here about the lunar effects on women and a little there on the recent landing on her South Pole before going back inside.
However, she drew me back when the baby woke in the small hours and I got this picture as she was setting over the trees. She was lighting up the skyline like the sun rising on the wrong side.
A magical, quiet moment between me, my girly, and the moon.
Interesting knockers
If you happen to go for a wander around my local town of Nérac here in France, you may just happen to notice the door knockers here and there are shaped like hands.
This piqued my interest so I did a little digging and found that these door knockers represent the Hand of Fatima, a powerful protective symbol in both Jewish and Islamic faiths.
Fatima Zahra, for whom the knockers are named, was the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed and the hand is associated with warding off the evil eye. In other faiths, it can be referred to as the Hand of Miriam or the Hand of Mary.
This makes total sense when you think about the Moorish occupation of medieval Spain and its cultural influences on the South West of France.
What I’ve been loving (or not)
The worst film
Ok let’s get straight to the one thing I’ve not been loving and that’s a relatively recent Netflix film called Medieval.
It’s based on the real story of Jan Zizka, who defeated armies of the Teutonic Order and the Holy Roman Empire. Sounds great and something that’s right up my street, sitting at my table, and having a cup of tea.
Anyone who knows me knows that my top 3 films of all time are Braveheart, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and A Knight’s Tale. I’m into epic history and am not that bothered about the historical accuracy if it’s a great story.
I’m easily pleased.
But this film had nothing. Dreary colours, terrible sound where I couldn’t make out the dialogue, a confusing plot, and no characters I cared about from the off.
Not even Michael Caine or Lady Mary from Downton Abbey’s handsome car-racing husband could save it for me.
10 out of 10 do not recommend.
Apps
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been really loving the app called Craft.
The app is designed to be a place for you to write, organise, and store notes. It lets you create timetables, checklists, templates, and much more.
I have always been a super scatty user of the Apple Notes app and they were the scene of a lot of chaos. I thank all the gods for the keyword search function or I’d never find anything again.
This is why I love Craft so much as it’s allowed me to create a content and writing ideas list that is easy to find and search. I also have a built-in calendar with my daily task template ready to go every day.
It’s basically replaced three heavily used apps for me: The Calendar, Notability, and Notes.
So if you’re as scatty as me and want one easy app to help you, I recommend Craft.
I’m not getting paid for this, I just bloody love it!