Doorway Writing Group March/April 2019

We’ve had a good few contented word searchers these last couple of sessions – especially popular was the combined gapfill and wordsearch on different types of fish. There’s clearly no plaice that warms the sole like Doorway…
We’ve been working with a slightly easier crossword these last months (from the free Metro paper) which has proved more accessible though there are still just enough obscure clues to challenge our regular crossword fans. We experimented with putting the whole crossword out round the tables with the easiest clues circled as a suggested way in. D, who is (in his words) ‘not normally a crossword kind of guy’ worked at it really solidly one session, teaming up with some others and even deciding to take it home to finish it off. We can always rely on N to help out with the trickier clues. So hop-drying kilns are ‘oasts’ and mother-of-pearl is ‘nacre’ then. Thanks, N! And you can even live in a disused oast apparently. Sounds cool! Not that anyone here would be particularly choosy: after all, any roof is better than no roof!
We rounded one of our sessions off with a nice chat about English lessons at school – not the easiest subject, D reckoned, (probably about the hardest language there is, in fact, in terms of spelling) but he remembered his English teacher as the one teacher he’d particularly respected.

Finally, read on for another poetic treat from our wonderful J:

Under the Prow (a poem by J)

When the ship docked
in Copenhagen
We set off immediately in search
of the little mermaid

Behind the pastel coloured houses
on the harbour front
pacing the cobbled lanes
and the fish markets

She was nowhere to be seen
from the beach to the horizon
not even a glimpse!

Time was running out
we had to run back to the ship
We had just made it
but we had to ask.
The old fisherman
pushed back the peak of his cap
and pointed a weathered finger
and there was the mermaid
motionless, serene, almost directly beneath
the ship’s prow

Our search ended where we left it,
the tale ends where the tale begins.
On the quay!