{"id":2473,"date":"2012-08-14T11:56:26","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T10:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=2473"},"modified":"2012-08-14T11:58:49","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T10:58:49","slug":"life-changing-australian-poet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=2473","title":{"rendered":"Life-changing Australian poet"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2474\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2474\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/andrewatwinterton.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2474\" title=\"andrewatwinterton\" src=\"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/andrewatwinterton-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/andrewatwinterton-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/andrewatwinterton.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2474\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Not an Australian poet, but Andrew on the beach at Winterton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A quiet few days in terms of getting out of the house, but of course the Olympics were coming to a climax and Dot was also \u2013 well \u2013 reaching the apogee of her house-cleaning programme preparatory to welcoming the Murrays when we return from Devon. The house now looks terrific and I am beginning to relax a bit. The weather has been good.<\/p>\n<p>Have been out a bit, though. Yesterday, after our regular haircut, I rendezvoused with Lisa D&#8217;Onofrio and had a late lunchlet at Waterstone&#8217;s. As literature development officer back in 2003, she opened the door for me to take part in a poetry project which eventually turned into <em>InPrint, <\/em>and so changed my life, transforming me from a closet poet into a real one. She is a really good poet in her own right, but she is now living in Australia, her home country. We had a good 90 minutes of reminiscence and catching-up, following which I bought a new pair of trainers.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday Dot and I went to see Jessie after visiting the cemetery at North Walsham. It was actually a bit warm to sit in her summerhouse, so we moved indoors for scones and strawberries. She seems very well, apart from family worrries.<\/p>\n<p>Last night I had my second game of chess this calendar year \u2013 a bizarre affair in the first round of the club knockout tournament. I got a clear advantage fairly early on and should have won, but I was too timid, blundered and then he was clearly winning. But he dropped a piece, and I got the advantage again, but couldn&#8217;t make anything of an extra pawn in a queen ending. So we have to play again in September. Not a classic. However, I picked up my prize for best game played at the club last season, which turned out to be a\u00a325 John Lewis voucher \u2013 more than 100% larger than I thought it would be.<\/p>\n<p>The Olympics has now ended, but it lingers on in the newspapers and on TV. After a brilliant opening ceremony, the closing ceremony was very poor musically (two songs from George Michael and Russell Brand singing a Beatles song &#8211; is that the best we can do?) though it did end with The Who, bringing a bit of belated class to the proceedings. Someone said that before the Olympics, everyone thought we were poor at sport but brilliant at music: now&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A quiet few days in terms of getting out of the house, but of course the Olympics were coming to a climax and Dot was also \u2013 well \u2013 reaching the apogee of her house-cleaning programme preparatory to welcoming the Murrays when we return from Devon. The house now looks terrific and I am beginning &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=2473\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Life-changing Australian poet<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[946,1098,1483],"class_list":["post-2473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chess","tag-lisa","tag-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2473"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2476,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions\/2476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}