Wednesday, September 19, 2007

not-very-good catch-up post...

so it's been busy-ness as usual round here these past few weeks, but there's a relative lull in the offing, a return to normal work-hours, the chance of some time with the family, a rumour of rest and down-time. [oh yes!]

so - last friday i was invited to lancaster for a headteacher's conference which also saw the launch of the advent resource that i've been working on with lisa and craig and co at the blackburn diocese. [see previous posts] i had a great time - paul cookson [top poet] and roly baines [clergyman clown] were performing and talking there too, and several folk came up and said some nice stuff about '40' and how they'd used it in their schools...

then, after the conference, cookson dragged me off to the football museum in preston where he is poet in residence.
i've never been before, and it's a great place. paul was going there to have some publicity shots taken for an exhibition of poetry that he's curating there this month - and so we ended up with the ball from the '66 world cup final - the actual hurst hat-trick ball!

i wasn't allowed to touch it of course - white cotton gloves had to be worn by the museum staff transporting it to and from its display case. but i got close enough...
as an artefact it's actually almost disappointing - murky orange coloured, a little shrivelled and a bit shabby round the edges [insert your own david dickinson/judith chalmers joke here] - but it carries so much meaning, it's such a special thing... [and the only signature on it that hasn't faded away completely is uri geller's. what's that all about then?] it was a real privilege to be allowed so close to it.

a photo of me and said ball was snapped - i'll post it if i can get ahold of it - just to prove that i was there...

in the meantime, if you're interested in the advent resource, email me and i'll put you in touch with lisa, as copies of the dvd will be available for purchase, i think... [end of plug]

on the desk lately [artwork for simple animations for a phonics teaching programme...]

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