Wednesday, 9 January 2008:Friends and favourites

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..." sang Julie Andrews. One of my favourite things on my kitchen windowsill is an African violet in a giant willow pattern teacup. And an apt quotation about favourite things scribbled in my notebook: "In solitude objects are the company we keep." (Siri Hustvedt). But life is not all solitude either. Friends are everywhere, even in cyberspace. I found my first friendly comments on my blog today. Thank you, Alexandra of Silver Bell Cottage and Keilleigh for such enthusiastic and kind words of encouragement. Thank you also to 'local' friends, Erna and Fiona, who also responded and others who phoned or sent text messages.

Now some more about myself: I have been teaching comparative education and educational management at a university for the last 25 years. These days I am mainly involved with supervising postgraduate students' research. But I have an English major (obtained about a century ago!) and tutor English Second Language students after hours. I have done considerable academic writing - textbooks and journal articles - but always had a secret yen to just express myself without the abbreviated Harvard system coming in between. And then I discovered blogwrite!