Rae of Light

It's that time of year again. I love celebrating my birthday and have never placed much store in chronological age. I'm as old as I care to feel. My annual birthday list has become a bit of a feature, particularly on my Facebook   page. But this year, as I’m celebrating a significant birthday – half a century – I thought I’d up the ante and ask for things I really really want. For some of you who’ve been following the blog for some time now, you may recognise a theme and also see a recurrence of past sort after gifting ideas. Buy Books - Review Books Firstly, buying and reviewing any of my books is always a terrific present to give me.  I am after all a self-published writer and every sale increases my current single figure royalty total. Secondly, as can be seen from my pre-birthday 2014 post , the humble gift voucher still remains a firm favourite for me.  And I feel will remain so until the day I’m packed off in my fully recyclable coffin.

Shortly after Lambeth Council shut Carnegie Library and before I became a trustee with the Carnegie Library Association , I felt such utter helplessness in the face of a government body and its relentless disregard for what local residents actually want and need.  Yes, I’d supported The Occupation.  Yes, I’d gone on the marches.  Yes, I’d inundated my Twitter feed with anything and everything to do with loving my library.  But I didn’t feel it was enough. As a tutor with Ruskin Readers I was in the midst of the plight faced by community groups ousted from Carnegie Library.  While I tried to assist our lead tutor Caroline Knapp as she emailed and made Facebook appeals for us to secure a suitable venue, I quietly seethed within. I wanted to do SOMETHING . Then I got a notification email from my Google Calendar to renew my library books.   I made a sudden resolution.    I would not return any of the library books I currently had in my possession unless I

I managed to finish ahead of time which was a small miracle to be sure So last year I foolishly set myself the challenge of reading 100 books in a year.   I wasn’t really thinking clearly and the number 100 just popped into my head when I spotted the challenge on Goodreads .    I won’t be doing that again because it was an almost impossible task and I hate setting myself up to fail.   Luckily, I didn’t fail but that was predominantly down to the help of my wonderful students. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I do try to do something different or learn something new every year if at all possible. This year I’m opting to do things a little differently.  I’m giving myself a very practical challenge combined with one I know is going to be filled with fun.  So firstly I’ve decided that if I want to fulfil my ambition of eventually retiring to an Italian island I’d better improve on the smattering of Italian I currently possess: Buongiorno, bu