On the back cover on each of my self-published tomes I include brief autobiographical data, which I pen in the third person. As it’s probably apparent, this predominantly self-deprecating fictional detail has been written with tongue very much in cheek. Below is a selection of those thus far printed, which I’ve amalgamated into one post………
Month: January 2019
Poetic Licence
Around eighteen months ago I dabbled at extending my literary boundaries by trying my hand at writing poetry. All very pompous and tongue in cheek stuff, delivered in an olde worlde style, some of which can be found on my website writesaidfred.org under the menu title of ‘Pretentious Prose’. https://strachan.blog/2017/06/24/pretentious-prose/ These pieces of work were…
Broken Heart Notions
A foreboding grey sheet envelopes this morning’s east Leeds sky. Looking out from my recuperative billet, leafless deciduous trees and a visually unappealing brick building from Colton Retail Park lugubriously return my gaze. The pallid outdoor canvas providing such dimmed natural light that, despite the clock showing 10.07 am, there’s a requirement for table lamp…
Hair
As undertaken around a month ago, I’m contemplating ridding myself of facial hair. This a consequence of my visage fluff starting to itch like hell. Not to mention my wife recently liken me to Catweazle’s scruffier brother……. And that was before I’d even grown this full beard! Pretentiously, I see my increased facial hirsuteness as…
Quite A Week
As I seek the inspiration to furnish the chaste page in front of me, my eyes are drawn to a sign secured on my bedroom wall. This wooden notice with wording of white water-colour professing ‘I love you to the moon and back’ stares blankly back at me. The wall plaque a gift from local…
Rain Stops Dismay
In search of a strategy to help me relax during post-op recuperation, I’m currently listening to the calming sounds of rainfall on YouTube. This ten hour video, shot in a park on one static camera, bequeathing to it’s viewer/listener the relaxing tones of cascading precipitation. I’d like to clarify, I don’t intend listening to all…
Fragile
On the album Nothing Like The Sun ex-Police frontman Sting gifted his discerning listener a serene refrain titled ‘Fragile’. Contained within it a particularly emotive musical thread performed on Spanish guitar. A melancholic yet comforting melody apparently inspired by the killing of a peace corps volunteer in Nicaragua. As a non-musician I’m unqualified to give…
Adapting
Yesterday, during discharge from hospital, a medic warned me to take things steady physically, along with avoiding situations that may trigger stressful responses. Well meaning advice key to GJ Strachan’s speedier post-op recuperation. The need of which chronicled in greater depth in yesterdays blog ‘Home at Last’ – https://strachan.blog/2019/01/15/home-at-last/ Knowing the potential consequences of not…
Home At Last
Yesterday evening, laying in the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) bed which’d been my residence since a cardiac arrest last Friday morning, thoughts turned to how much I’d missed casa Strachan during this unscheduled tenancy. A quartet of dusks/dawns where I’d been deprived of numerous sensory comfort blankets. Simple experiences such as witnessing it’s decorative contemporary…