End-start, Haiku 8-12

My last day of work, ever. I had wonderful send-offs  from all my colleagues. I have not had so many flowers, cards & presents since our first daughter was born, no-one worries so much about the second!
So challenge 1 (retire) is fully active, now time to start seriously on the rest. Only 48 more Haiku.
8 is, of course for my great nephew
9&10, thinking ahead to my Christmas sloe-gin brew
12 is a bit philosophical on our possible origins in interstellar dust clouds, a nice theory. I stole the swanblack from a piece of music I heard on Radio 3 Breakfast

Haiku 8
caterpillar toes
breast-happy pumm'lling milk-fists
not-yet-focussed eyes

Haiku 9
sloe-white flower-drift
magical transformation
purple Christmas gin

Haiku 10
springsnow flower storm
bitterblack, Christmas purple
magicalchemy

Haiku11
first spring bee-buzzings
musical-fierce robinsong
suncrackling pine cones

Haiku 12
origin-echoes,
infinite frozen fireflies
swandowny blackness

boarding school,

Part 3 of my 60 school memories, the good and bad of boarding school:

Not knowing how to do my plaits on the first morning
Crying into my breakfast as I was so homesick
Joanne who was given the task of "mothering" me
Matron's temper and ankles,cause or effect of being "Miss"?
A copy of the Wilton Diptych in the library
Amazing my teacher by getting 82% for Latin
The choir singing Britten's Ceremony of Carols and Handel's Messiah
Still not being able to sing
Discovering I could do chemistry better than anyone else
Using my father's slide-rule for physics A level
Creeping down to the Head Mistress' greenhouse with Julia in the middle of the night, returning with a single geranium flower as a dare
A lecture on moving the Abu Simbel temples for the Aswan dam to be built
Having to fill our rough books and getting them signed off before having a new one
Hating to leave my friends who went off to all corners of the world

Haiku 4,5,6,7

Haiku 4
granny-hand oak trees
herself safe in blanket-moss
sunbeams: bright mem'ries

Haiku 5
needlefrost knifewind
lace-edged glass-brittle leaf-ghosts
paperwhite snow-sky

Haiku 6
squid-ink waters swirl
ripples, star-lined reflecting
sky's infinity

Haiku 7
twilight, unhurried
ambles gently through colours
fades into slumber

needle felting

7) Next new challenge: Laura taught us how to needle felt, not hard but fiddly. Here's the link to an image:
http://dragonbrain.deviantart.com/#/d3b7jf5
Watch for more!

middle school

  When I was about 8, my parents moved to Sussex so I changed schools, so this is part 2 of school memories.
The height of the building, probably 3 floors and an attic, it seemed like a great threatening tower
Decorating a den under a rhododendron with purple plastic chocolate cases
Getting an order mark for not having clean white games socks
My favourite teacher passing out at lunch, I now realise it was an epileptic fit-sad days-we never saw her again
Sour milk in the summer
Having our own linen table napkins
Jenny Jacobs always being in trouble
Cristobel Walker having her leg in plaster
Jane Arrowsmith & Jane Bowlby coming home for lunch & dressing up
A pair of near-identical twins, known as "the nice one" & "the pretty one"
The wooden-covered walkway between the dining room and classroom, occasional mild grafitti
Julie joined us for 1 year from a special school, she had Down's syndrome. I went to her Birthday party
Not being in the Carol Service as I couldn't sing in tune, sitting at the back with a senior girl who read a lesson
Failing the 11 plus
Passing common entrance

60 photos

6) This is my gallery of 60 single colour photos as ordered by Amy. I really enjoyed this and might well develop it further. Watch this spot!
http://dragonbrain.deviantart.com/gallery/28965718

1st five,primary school,

Here are the first five completed new things:
1) I (will) have retired
2) I have started a blog
3) I have applied for and been offered a place at art school on my portfolio
4) Rewired a new light fitting
5) Tried &, surprisingly, enjoyed aquarobics

     Part 1 of Clare's suggestion of 60 school memories: Primary
The excitement of walking with Michael, thinking "It's nearly my turn"
Thrill of finding conkers to write "autumn" on the mustn't-sit-on window sill
No uniform, but best yellow gingham sundress with embroidery and little jacket
"Point your toes" I wasn't good at ballet so my girls did gymnastics
Learning a primitive "River Dance" with no idea what to do with my hands
Deputy head reading out prayers as Mrs Mudge had lost her voice
Shiny red bucket-bag for my shoes
Being sick in it!
Peter Neville-Jones coming back after a whole term of illness
Primrose, who had hearing aids & glasses
Being told it wouldn't work if I did my tables on my fingers, & wondering why!
Charles & Timmy screaming because they didn't want to go to school
Saying prayers for a classmate in Odstock Hospital after a car accident
Sunlight through coloured glass in the front door, we used the back
Going back, Mrs Mudge swinging me round calling me Janey-waney-waney