snow and smoke outside the Langue Centre

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snow and smoke outside the Langue Centre

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Two days at Surrey university

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 For those of you who don't know, I've just registered as a student at Surrey University. It is based in Guildford which means it's not on the other side of the planet from Wantage! You just need to take the Oxford Bus Company X35 or X36 and go into Beauty (ie the countryside surrounding where I live) then arrive in Didcot. Take a train to Reading and change there. So yes really, not far! I plan to go there about once per month. It was only my second day of studies yesterday but I was given the chance to read some of my poems, so I said yes of course! I also heard the other students' work which was great. During the day, there was the Surrey New Writers Festival on campus and my mind (and bank account...) got blown away! I do admit that apart from Amy Key I didn't know anyone. Wow... came back home, around midnight, my bag full of books and I'm now trying to process all the fantastic comments I heard yesterday. It was the best literary festival I went to becau...
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I used to go to work early, and even then, I was not ready. So I would pop in Taylor's on St Giles and get an espresso. Then, I would go to my place – I wish I'd say my favourite place but it's a graveyard and I'm no Goth – under that fig tree, just outside the graveyard, against the small wall. I would enjoy my strong coffee with a cigarette, the taste of each other mingling nicely together and progressively waking me up. And almost every morning, by the dot of 8 am, Mrs Dalloway would appear. I did call her Mrs Dalloway because she would walk fast, as if she'd "get the flowers" herself, like in the begining of that novel by Virginia Woolf. And yes, immanquablement, invariablement, Mrs Dalloway would appear ; a long, tall woman with fair hair, vaguely looking like a prettier Virginia Woolf with a rucksack on her back, wearing a shirt but with sport shoes, à la New Yorkaise. And yes of course, I had to quote an English author, perhaps the most En...
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