Monday, November 23, 2020

100 words a day project with J

100 words a day project with J

Last week I challenged one of my students to write 100 words a day for a week. To encourage him I decided to set myself the same challenge. Here are the results of my own 100 words a day challenge. 

I think it makes an interesting snapshot of a lockdown week.



Day 1 Wednesday 18 November

Today I've challenged J, one of my students, to write 100 words each day for the week. Next Wednesday morning I'm expecting to see seven 100 word texts written by J. I'm also going to write 100 words each day to share with him over the week.

I’m going to have to be quite careful what I write to him because J is only 11 years old. But I’m really hoping that writing a hundred words every day will give me inspiration for writing lots of poetry and other stuff.

I waited ages to get connected to J this morning.


Day 2 Thursday 19 November

This evening I had my weekly online meeting with my friend David. We meet to play music to each other. We decide on a music project then aim to meet once a week to listen to the music. Sometimes we can’t meet but since lockdown, we’ve been meeting regularly. This has been going on for ten years. Since the first lockdown in March we’ve been meeting online.

So we meet at 8.30. At first, we talk about the week that’s just passed. Then David plays the first half of the music. We have a break and talk about the music.


Day 3 Friday 20 November

Today I’ve spent the morning reading and the afternoon writing poetry. I’ve set myself a big reading challenge since the end of October. The T. S. Eliot poetry prize is a competition to find the best poetry collection published every year. The winner is announced every January. They announce a shortlist of ten books in October. The winner will be one of the shortlisted collections. Most years I buy as many of the shortlisted poetry collections as I can and try and read them all before the announcement. This year I’ve bought seven collections. I’ve read five collections so far.


Day 4 Saturday 21 November

Since the latest lockdown, I’ve ordered all our food shopping online and get it delivered. It’s a new way of shopping for us. A few times a week I log on to our online shopping account and I add to our shopping basket. On Saturday my wife and I sit down at the kitchen table and discuss what we’re going to eat during the week. Then we check to see if we’ve got the ingredients. If we don’t have the ingredients we add it to the list. I’m writing this and waiting for delivery. It will be here soon.



Day 5 Sunday 22 November

We’ve watched the last episode of series one of The Bridge. Since the first lockdown in late March watching television has been an important part of our everyday routine. We usually settle down to watch television after 8.00 and before 9.00 every weekday evening. We hardly watch terrestrial television so we’re not limited by schedules. We watch BBC iPlayer, Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The Bridge was originally broadcast years ago but now it’s been put on iPlayer we can watch it when we like. There’re ten episodes in series one and we’ll watch the whole series in about two weeks.



Day 6 Monday 23 November

This morning I went for a cycle ride. It is the first time I’ve taken the bike out for a week. I’ve not been out much over the last month or so. My aim, since I bought the bike, is to exercise regularly, for at least three times a week. But I’ve not been able to establish a good routine. During the first lockdown, I did very well. My daughter came to stay for about two months. Every two or three days she jogged and I cycled along with her. We got into a good routine but she’s gone now.


Day 7 Tuesday 24 November


Every morning I get up at ten to seven. I go into the kitchen and I make a cup of coffee for my wife and a cup of tea for me. I take my wife’s mug of coffee to her in bed and leave the coffee on a bedside table. Then I take my cup of tea into the sitting room. I put the tea on a side table then open the blinds. I settle down in a big armchair and I recite three poems aloud to the empty room. I’ve learned these poems by heart. It’s fun.

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