Last night we had our end of year dinner at Aston Norwood gardens.
Before dinner we did some archery and clay pigeon shooting. The weather wasn’t the best but we still did it.
Christmas dinner: Aston Norwood NZ
Tag: enjoy
Farm adventure in pictures.
Sheep watching 
Front of house 
Bunny cage
Seven steps 
Penni & Compton 
On a mission-Sheeppoo
Electric fence 
Tired after his mission up hill
From the back deck 
Naughty sheep looking at me 
Penni basking in sunshine
On the trampoline 
Bea tired of all the jumping 
Relaxing for a minute
Climbing in a tree 
Jumping, jumping 
Motorbike
I had a good time on the farm. The weather was horrible and I had to stay inside the most of the time. I had to go out in the pouring rain to let the sheep into the paddock every day, feed the chickens who are way up the hill from the house.
Sunday October 6, Family and friends visited and we had a lovely sunny day. The weather was so good that we had a barbecue in warm weather(the wind was chilly)
Last week reminder September: A & I Poetry Challenge: Limerick
Just a reminder that September Poetry contributions close next weekend, September 30.
This month we wrote some Limericks on seasons.
Please post your limerick on your blog, linking your URL to Ineke or Amanda’s blogs to get included in the September roundup and also for other bloggers to read.
For more information on how to participate click Here
Host bloggers are, Amanda from Australia at
https://forestwoodfolkart.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/poetry-challenge-september-prompt/
and Ineke from New Zealand at
https://scrapydo2.wordpress.com/2018/09/22/a-i-poetry-challenge-limerick/
jointly host the challenge.
Ineke mostly does the poetry in Afrikaans, while Amanda uses English.
The challenge is open to all, from first-timers up to well-advanced poets.
The Challenge runs from March to October 2018.
October is the last one for this year. Amanda will put the October Challenge up in the first week of October.
School Stories: Completed books with own stories
After six weeks of writing stories during the school’s Enrichment periods, each child had a book as an end product. The ages of the writers ranged between eight and ten.
The students thoroughly enjoyed writing the stories.
A first time for me!
What an experience!
The first time in my ‘long’ life I went
TEN PIN BOWLING
The staff of the school had a lovely evening out. There were four teams of six. We thoroughly enjoyed the outing.
A & I Poetry Challenge: July 2018
Our July Challenge:
Turn on the radio to any channel.
Write a poem inspired by the first thing you hear (lyrics to a song, a commercial, etc.)
Post it to your blog, prior to July 26, and include the Tag A and I Poetry Challenge, so that Amanda and I, (the hosts) can find your poem and comment.
Leave a comment on this post to indicate your interest in participation.
The A and I Poetry Writing Challenge has been running for several months and the poetic community grows each month.
(Click Here for a sample)
When formulating your poem, please keep in Mind:
The prompt is merely a suggestion if you need help getting started with ideas.
You may, write about whatever you choose and still tag our A and I Poetry Challenge so that other readers can find your poetry post.
A and I Poetry Challenge Instructions HERE
Read my Submission in my follow up post, tomorrow, together with links to the Poetry participants from the month of June, but first here are some Poetry Writing Tips:
Poetry Writing Tips from Allison
- Don’t overdo prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs.
- Use action verbs, not “to be” verbs
- Help the reader interact with the poem.
- Help the reader relate by focusing on particular objects, not generalizing a type of object (whether the object is physical, mental, or spiritual).
- Find unusual subject matter — a teapot, a shelf, a wall
- Keep a notebook with you at all times so you can write whenever (and wherever) inspiration strikes.
- Sometimes it is a scratching secret, wanting out, wanting to be in the world but held back by fear. Either way there is something about the act of sharing with the world, however big or small that world might be, that completes the creative process.
- If you want to capture a feeling that you experienced, then you don’t need these tips. Just write whatever feels right. Only you experienced the feeling that you want to express, so only you will know whether your poem succeeds.
Happy writing
Ineke
A & I Poetry Challenge. End of June
Poetry Challenge Entries for June Closing Soon
It is the final week of the Monthly Poetry Challenge for June.
Write a poem based on your own theme or the prompt given below, and post using the tag A and I Poetry Challenge. You have until Friday to be included in this months round up of entries.
The prompt is outlined below but perhaps you have another theme to present?
Leave a comment here so that Ineke and I can easily find your poem for this month.
Find instructions for joining in HERE
June Prompt
Write a poem about something small that is only 5 lines long. Write the same poem again and try to use concrete words.
Discuss which version you like best and why.
The prompt is merely a suggestion if you need help getting started with ideas.
You may of course, write about whatever you choose and still tag our A and I Poetry Challenge so that other readers can find your poetry post.
If you have the skill to read or write in Afrikaans, you can find Ineke’s contribution here:
https://scrapydo2.wordpress.com/2018/06/04/a-i-poesie-uitdaging-junie/
Amand and Ineke – A and I Poetry Challenge
(I copied and pasted this from Amanda’s reminder)
Bea visits Ouma!
Bea visited me this morning. It was the first time since they moved out of this house. She still could not really walk around when they moved. Today she first walked with her mum, to see the cows across the road.
She came inside and had a look outside on the deck while her parents looked around.
Time to go home and she did not really want to go. She went back, going up the three steps, onto the deck and then jumping off into Daddies’ arms.
A and I Poetry Challenge no 3: May
The A and I Poetry challenge is jointly hosted by Amanda and Ineke and is open to everyone, from complete beginners to advanced writers or aspiring poets.
The challenge runs March to October 2018. Each month we will share tips, offer a monthly poetry prompt and post link backs to your published Poetry posts.
Please scroll down to see this month’s poetry writing tips and April’s entrant links.
I am co-hosting this challenge with Amanda from https://forestwoodfolkart.wordpress.com/ – we met here on WordPress.
If you wish to read the story of how we met click here.
A and I Poetry Challenge Guidelines
- For General instructions on joining in click the Poetry Challenge Page.
- Everyone is very welcome to enter and age is no barrier.
- Write any kind of poem that you like, (the below prompt for this month, is merely a suggestion); it can be fun or serious.
- Write in any language that pleases you, and note that it certainly doesn’t have to be in English. As this is a joint challenge I, from Scrapydo2, will also post the challenge in Afrikaans on my blog, so if that language suits you better, visit her
- Add the A an I Poetry badge if you so wish. (optional)
- Publish the poem on your blog before the 27th day of that month adding the tag A and I Poetry Challenge to your post.
- Once you publish your blog post, please leave a comment here on this page and also at Amanda’s blog listing the URL link to YOUR poem. [Others can then find their way to your post and we build a supportive community of poets who visit, read and comment on other’s poetry.
**If you don’t post the link to our blogs with your poetry, it is really hard for us to find you and include a link back to your blog, for the next month’s challenge.
Poetry Challenge – May Prompt
*Write a poem using this photograph or one of your own as inspiration.
N.B. If you choose to use your own photo, please post the photo along with the poem.
Poetry Challenge Entrants for April:
- Ineke writes on a close friendship in Same Time, Same Place
- Amanda’s entry is found in the April post here
- Tanya takes on a nostalgic trip back in time at pandapoet96.wordpress.com
- Gerard posted his usual fast poet contribution in the comments of last month’s post here
- Also in the comments of my April post: Monk3ydavid@wordpress.com
- Rimons33.wordpress.com/ writes about anonymity
- Wayne writes about longing and grief for something now lost at The Rooster Times
- Peppered with Stories wrote several poems during the month of April
- Melvin got in early in the month with a tale about feeling chained here
- Manya Mexi had some humorous drama in the bathroom Boulevard of Broken Bathrooms
- I received the following entries:
- Simply snapshots wrote about the post office https://rimons33.wordpress.com/2018/04/07/the-woman-in-the-post-office/
- Poetry Challenge submissions in Afrikaans include:
- Amanda at PenPunt makes her mother proud
- versevirdieverdwaaldes.wordpress.com/ writes a short but very interesting poem
Poetry Tips
- Formatting – Tools to help you format your poems on your blog, including how to add extra lines in your post without WordPress expunging them on posting, can be found here
- Live your poem. When you write, imagine you are a participant in your poem. Look around. See what’s happening. Feel the texture of the sticky pine cone. Feel how difficult it is to pull your fingers apart to type afterwards. Listen to the sounds around you. A robin? A whippoorwill? A Tasmanian devil? Smell your panic. Taste the dryness on your tongue, the thin salt. Activate all your senses. Galway Kinnell once said, “If you’re going to write about a frog, become that frog. Inhabit frogness.”
- Don’t think too much, just write it down.
Ray Bradbury once said, “Throw yourself off a cliff and build your wings on the way down.” Don’t think too much about what I’m going to write. Let the poem create itself. Discover what you are doing in the process of doing it. It evolves as you put pen to paper.
- Incorporate poetry devices
What else can make your poetry shine like the summer sun? Imagery, metaphors, and the symbolism-to name just a few poetry devices-are subtle ways to improve your poetry. By adding rhyme, irony, or tone to your work, you create a phoenix from a dead piece of paper.
Readers enjoy poetry with meaning, that has a beat or an easy flow, and can be secretive but not beyond their understanding. Great poets know exactly how to incorporate the many elements of poetry into their work.
Research the many poetry devices (others include simile, figurative language, synecdoche, allegories, and musical devices) and begin practising with them in your own poetry. Write a poem with a theme you enjoy but base it on irony or a metaphor. Continue to practice each device and work them all into different poems to experience each one’s effect.
You can find many examples and ways to use poetry devices by reading books on the subject or doing a simple search online. Study and learn each device, because you never know when one might work perfectly for what you are trying to write. And by diversifying your abilities, you make yourself a much better writer.
In a nutshell:
- Use poetry devices to give your work substance.
- Readers enjoy reading poetry with inner meaning or special attributes.
- It takes practice, hard work, and dedication to master devices like Symbolism, Imagery, or Rhyme.
- Finding out about each poetry device is easy; just search online or at your local bookstore or library.
[Source Credit: https://forum.rhymezone.com/articles/884-5-tips-for-writing-better-poetry-how-to-jumpstart-your-writing-by-john-bon]
I can’t wait to read what you come up with this month.
Don’t forget to link back to this post, on your poetry submission post, and leave a link and comment here so Amanda, Ineke and others can find your post.
Have fun!
`Ineke and Amanda
Baby Talk: Dinner and a horse ride!
The family is back from their Christmas outing.
We had a lovely meal together.
While waiting for our food
Dad gave Bea her meal.
Then we had fun!
We went to Grandma’s place.
Guess what I did?
HORSERIDING
I was so wild from the start Grandma could not get some good photos.
Only in full motion.
If you take a good look you can also see grandma’s squeaky Snoopy dog in front of me riding with me on the horse! This doggy is still my Dad’s toy. He still remembers it.
