Beginings

Around five weeks ago now, I received an early Christmas present. A box full of books, CDs and DVDs... my study materials for the Open University. After checking the contents I placed it in a corner and immediately forgot about it. After all it was Christmas... and there was partying to be done!


Once Christmas and New Year were out of the way (and the living room back to a state of normality) it was time to get the box back out again. I set up a study area in the corner of the room. Desk, bookshelves, boxes of pens and pencils, laptop and printer, and calendar and whiteboard on the wall. All set, ready to go and only three weeks until the website opens... and a full month until the official start date!


Eager to get going, I took the Study Companion from the shelf and devoured it in a single afternoon. I spent the evening navigating the eternal sea that is the OU website, and still working under full steam I read the Assignment Booklet from cover to cover. Just the tonic I needed to slow me down a little!


I haven't studied since school, twenty years ago so seeing the questions for the assignments started me thinking whether or not I had made the right choice. Arts? Me? When I was at school I dropped History and RE before GCSE, just managed to scrape a C in English Language, D in Music but only F in Art & Design... should I have considered a BSc instead? My results were much better for Maths, Geography (Physical), Economics, Chemistry and Physics.


But no! I just HAD to go down the Arts route if I was to develop my writing skills. You see, after my Mum died last October, we found a book in the bottom of her wardrobe. It didn't look particularly important or exciting, just a dog-eared, greying school exercise book; the type we used to use as jotters (or for doodling when we couldn't be bothered working). But it was what was INSIDE the book that was important.


For about fifteen years, my Mum had been writing poems. They were never going to win any awards, and were unlikely to be published in a Faber Anthology. A lot of them though were about her seven children - Me, my two brothers and four sisters. She had been writing all this time and never shared them with anyone. It was then that I decided I would start writing every day and share MY writing with the world. I just hope she's looking down and reading this over my shoulder, because Mum - this is all for you.


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