"Nuff said" is the appropriately crass terminology to sum up recent events that peaked with a catastrophic nosebleed in the school playground in front of very small children, but not mine thankfully. Tiredness and a retreating cold resulted in an impressive Hammer House of Horror fountain of blood that refused to be quelled.

Onto better and so much brighter things. I am writing a new story for my MA - and not because someone "didn't get it." It's a risk that has already earned me the accolade (in the eyes of my more youthful fellow students) of a formal warning; I prefer to see it as a gauntlet.

I'm enjoying the process - not that I've written much of it yet; I've spent the time planning, thinking and working out an outline. Today I met a lovely lady called Tiny who was a land girl in Cornwall during WWII. I have discovered in myself a genuine desire to find out about these (once) young women who worked so hard for so little reward or recognition - it was shocking to learn their efforts were only formally recognised last year, over 60 years after the war ended.

Anyway, notes on a maturing student. I've definitely aged over the last month, but not for the reasons I expected - I've felt myself out there and exposed. But with maturity comes perspective and from that vantage point I've found some truly great and lovely people in the fantastic students I have been lucky enough to learn alongside these past 10 months.