Inspiring Images – M J Mallon YA Author and Poet

Rigby and Peller Fashion Show – Addenbrooke’s Breast Cancer Appeal

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I am so thrilled to be part of the team of lingerie stylists at Rigby and Peller, Cambridge. This is a totally new venture for me. I’ve never worked in lingerie before, in fact in my previous retail job in John Lewis I was ensconced in the menswear department, amongst woolly jumpers, socks, underwear, and other male paraphernalia.

Since joining the company I’ve been impressed by Rigby and Peller’s training programme and their positive attitude and intention to make women feel good about themselves.

So with that in mind I put together the above slide show and this little blog post to tell you all about a very extraordinarily inspiring evening.

The Addenbrooke’s Breast Cancer Appeal Fashion Show was held in the Grand Arcade in Cambridge on the 4th of October. Several retail companies joined in the event including Rigby and Peller. Today I heard the wonderful news that the goal to raise £10,000 for the Addenbrooke’s appeal towards the cost of biopsy equipment for the breast cancer unit has now been met, and is being surpassed!

My manager at Rigby and Peller, Jenny Mason – one of the organisers of the event – has had first hand experience of the devastating effect of cancer, having lost her father to this dreadful disease. Jenny and Natalie Emuss (one of the models,) have worked tirelessly to make the fashion show such an enormous, and memorable success. Much respect to them both.

Here’s my daughter Georgina at the fashion show with her camera at the ready. A big thank you to Jenny Mason for allowing Georgina to take photographs of the event. Georgina is currently studying for three diplomas in Photography, Media Studies and Business Studies.

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This was Georgina’s first opportunity to take part in a photographic shoot and what better event to begin with than one that was so charged with emotion. The awesome women modelling lingerie and fashion had us spellbound, as did their husbands and partners. I so admire their bravery and positivity.

Georgina chose four of her favourite images to share with you here: one black and white and three in colour.

What a great start to her photographic studies.

I will leave you with one of our shop windows at Rigby and Peller advocating :

Strength, Courage, Love.

I couldn’t agree more!

Don’t forget to pop into Rigby and Peller to donate your unwanted bras in store this October. Or do what you can to raise money and awareness for breast cancer sufferers.

Links:

Saffron Walden Reporter Brave breast Cancer Models

Addenbrookes Breast Cancer Appeal Fashion Show Facebook Page

To donate:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Natalie-Emuss2

Bye for now,

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#MondayBlogs: Drive Thru Shine!! Good Luck: Exams!! #NanNowriMo

It’s Monday again, and I’m doing another #MondayBlogs post, brain child of @RachelintheOC. http://badredheadmedia.com/what-is-mondayblogs-and-why-you-should-be-participating/

To inspire and motivate all of you sitting exams and tests, I’m focusing on one precious short and sweet word, Shine.I know that my youngest daughter Gina is starting her mock GCSE exams this week so this is especially for her, and all of you currently studying in schools, colleges, and universities. Gina is a clever lass who excels at course work but finds exams pretty tortuous so that’s why I’m harping on about this. if you saw last week’s #MondayBlogs post you will have seen my photo of my eldest daughter, Natasha Mallon’s artwork, this week I’m featuring another piece that she did whilst studying GCSE Art, the above leaf drawing which I have entitled:

SHINE.

One word, but that is all you need. Shine.

This sentiment is also for all those #Nanowrimo writers out there who are insanely working towards their 50,000 words, you have my admiration, respect, and awe. I’m doing a bit of editing and writing short stories quite feeble in comparison but I’ve got a bit of an excuse, well sort of. I’m starting a new job this week, the day before my birthday! So at the moment I’ve got my daughter’s mock exams, a new job, and as well as this I’m waiting for feedback from The Hilary Johnson Author Advisory Service: http://www.hilaryjohnson.com/ regarding my manuscript. How Exciting!

Getting back to my birthday, don’t ask me how old I am I won’t tell you, I’ll let you guess…. I’m not a day over…. ????

I hope to work this new role alongside my blogging and writing but it probably does mean that my posts will not be as frequent as before. This is the moment when I sigh dramatically for emphasis. Such is life, how am I going to pay for Christmas and book marketing otherwise? Still they say Quality is better than Quantity so I do hope that I will still manage to achieve some Quality and keep you entertained.

I’m going to be super busy. Let’s face it pretending that I’m still fairly young takes up oodles of energy. Anyway I do hope that I will shine and remember to keep on top of everything! A friend of mine gave me a bit of a mobile phone tip – she puts alarm settings in her phone to remind her to do what she needs to do, when she needs to do them, I might have to resort to this tactic so I don’t forget anything. I’ll leave off my birthday reminder, I’m not too ancient to remember it’s my own birthday! YET !!!!

So remember to Shine, in whatever you do, achieve your very best, reach for those intellectual stars, give those exams a bit of an almighty ninja whack in the chops!

Shine, Smash, Sock it to ’em!

And same with that #Nanowrimo writing word count, whack it into submission, you’ll have it praying for mercy, I know you can do it!!

Shine, Smash, Sock it to ’em! NANOWRIMO!!

Oh and to conclude this drawn out waffle, here’s my final thought, it’s about driving. Did that topic come as a surprise? There was a clue in the title: Drive Thru Shine. Whatever is Marje @ Kyrosmagica on about now, you might ask? What has the word drive got to do with the word shine? Well they both kind of sound the same, well driving and shining do, and they both take you places. Driving plays such an important part in all that we do, it gives us freedom to go where we want, when we want, and how we want. The word drive is synonymous with ambition. There is no doubt in my mind that passing my driving test was one of the highlights of my life! That sounds a bit sad but it is true, I managed to finally get my driving licence after I got married, I wasn’t seventeen, I was a bit older. But, if you happen to be sitting a driving test right now and you are a bit dreamy like me, you have my sympathy, let’s just say driving tests, examiners and me ended up knowing each other real well. Maybe I should re-write that last sentence it sounds kind of a bit dubious!!! No matter, I like to make you laugh!

So my driving shine tips would go like this:

Don’t ninja punch the driving instructor that will be an instant fail! Not saying that I ever did this, of course not, even though perhaps I felt like it after I found out I didn’t pass.
Don’t worry about no. 1 that’s just me, you’ll be fine, keep focused, pretend that you’ve already got your licence, that the examiner isn’t right there with you by your side, watching you like a hawk, waiting to slam his clip board into the dashboard for that emergency stop.
Whatever you do don’t let go of the all important steering wheel. That wheel is going to take you places, believe me, I’m behind it and if I (the xxxx ? times failed driver can drive you sure can too!)
Don’t hit that brick wall, it really won’t impress the examiner, and it won’t make your parents too happy either, or if you happen to be a more mature learner, it won’t do much good to your bank balance!
Breathe, this is the first rule of thumb for any exam situation, if you forget it you might just pass out, and that is not to be recommended. Take deep comforting breaths, even if the examiner looks at you as if you are a tad odd, he’s not marking your personality quirks, he’s marking your competency.
Do some yoga the night before, light some aromatic candles, meditate, it really does help.

Links:

http://nanowrimo.org/

Good Luck!!! All you exam students, Nanowrimo’s, potential drivers….. Shine Ninja’s!!

Bye for now,

Shine Ninja Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

#MondayBlogs: Good Luck With Exams!!

For #MondayBlogs hastag on twitter, @RachelintheOC, I’m sharing something very close to my heart, some Good Luck Wishes.

What kind of Good luck Wishes? The kind that means that your blogging break gets forgotten for a tiny moment. I’m currently on a blogging break, but I couldn’t resist giving everyone a bit of encouragement before the forthcoming exams. My youngest daughter Georgina will be sitting her GCSE mock exams next week so studying is very much a focus of my and her attention at the moment! Believe me all this helping her with Maths is driving me a bit crazy! Maths seriously gives me a headache! So, I thought I’d try to do something a bit creative to counter the logic of Maths, to balance the right and left side of my brain! I had a bit of a dilemma as I can’t draw or paint, though I do dabble in photography, so, with that in mind I’m sharing a piece of art that I photographed, a floral piece, that my daughter Natasha Mallon did while at school studying GCSE Art.

So Good Luck to everyone studying, doing coursework and exams at schools, colleges and universities. Keep focused and positive, work hard, eat well, hydrate, breathe and stay calm, remember it is just a short spell of hard work and then you can party and have lots of fun!

Next Monday I will be sharing another #MondayBlogs art post to inspire you to achieve your very best.

Best of Luck, keep on smiling. This applies to those doing #Nanowrimo too, Good luck, I wish I was doing it too but life at the moment is just too busy!!

Here’s my contribution to the exam timetable I’ve been getting up and cracking a few eggs in the morning, omelettes or fried egg and bacon sounds good!

Bye for now,

Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

Writer’s Quote Wednesday and BeWow: Climb those Towers!

This week my Writer’s Quote Wednesday post has been inspired by my visit to Portsmouth, on Saturday evening. Here’s the link to Colleen’s Blog if you want to join in with her weekly quote share: http://silverthreading.com/2015/09/23/writers-quote-wednesday-lewis-carroll/

I was attending my husband’s work party at the Spinnaker Tower on Portsmouth harbour. In fact I found it so wonderful that this week I’m also joining in with Ron’s Be Wonderful Wednesday #BeWowBlogShare: https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/bewow-blogshare/

The Spinnaker is an amazing venue to have a party, the views are absolutely fabulous. On the way up there were some tears in the lift, one of the party goers became overwhelmed with nerves, but needless to say later in the evening after a few calming glasses of wine she seemed just fine. I also suffer somewhat with a fear of heights so I know what that’s like. Anyway thank goodness we were enclosed in and not hanging off the side, or abseiling down! That’s a party trick I wouldn’t care to participate in. Later in the evening several of the party goers danced or walked across the Sky Walk, a large glass floor, which is 100 metres above sea level. One person even did a head stand on it, but I think that was the alcohol speaking. Needless to say no one was allowed to walk, skip, or tap dance across it wearing high heeled stilettos!

So my quote from P.G. Wodehouse and #bewow is inspired by the heights that writers have to travel to be:

Recognised.
Successful.

Success comes to a writer as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realise the heights to which he has climbed. P. G. Wodehouse.

After being in that lift it certainly makes you realise how fast you can travel up, wouldn’t P. G. Wodehouse be amazed!

Here’s the view to give you an indication of what we are aiming for:

So my #BeWow statement would kind of go like this: Be all you can be, reach for the highest stars, let them twinkle in a blaze of glory, always remember to follow your dreams even if the path seems long and arduous, and maybe one day you might just wake up and realise you are living the dream that you have carried in your heart for a very long time.

Goodreads – About P G Wodehouse:

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse’s main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by modern writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O’Casey famously called him “English literature’s performing flea”, a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song “Bill” in Kern’s Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin – Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Links:

http://www.spinnakertower.co.uk/

Hope you liked my Writer’s Quote Wednesday, and #BeWow. Just in case you suffer from vertigo, I’ll do my best to come to your rescue!! Only kidding I’ll need rescuing too, but it’s good to dream.

Kyrosmagica to the Rescue. Bye for now.

Marje@ Kyrosmagica xx

Edinburgh Festival: Photographs of My Art Gallery Visit

A fantastic motto to live your life by, Martin Creed’s message: Everything Is Going To Be Alright. Keep positive folks…. Yes, Everything is alright, my mum is doing really well after her operation, I’m so pleased, and relieved. She’s such a strong lady, I’m in awe of her really I am. My brother mentioned that he thought he’d have to wheel her out of the hospital after her operation but no my mum was up on her feet telling the nurses she wanted to go home! Amazing!

I thought I’d share with you this visit to the Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art. It was one of the highlights of my trip to Edinburgh as I got a chance to go out with my mum, just the two of us, which was a treat in itself. She is still a bit delicate after her operation, no dancing for a while yet, so we had a coffee and a chat in the café and afterwards I did a super fast tour, while she read a book and had a well deserved rest.

I always like to pop into these two art galleries when I’m in Edinburgh. This time I just managed to go to Gallery One, but that’s alright as Gallery One is my favourite, it’s always full of inspiring art, has a lovely shop, and a coffee shop too. It is well worth a visit if you are ever in Edinburgh. Currently there is an exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein’s work at Gallery One, as part of Reflections, which is on until 10th January 2016 so still plenty time to see this free exhibition. The gallery is located at 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR, and is easily accessible via bus.

These images caught my eye as I went up the stairs, I liked the idea of looking through the window panes and seeing the view divided into six panes of awesomeness! So I nipped down to the café and told my mum that I wanted to take some photos, and then I popped up the stairs to snap these two images. Yes, I was running around that gallery like a sprinter. We were on a tight time frame, it really was a flying visit, as I was going out later in the day to the …….. yes you guessed it, the Book Festival.

Here’s another view of the same spot from the outside, with a Miró sculpture in the foreground.

Oh and on the way out…. I came face to face with the Sunken Statue, on the way to….. the bus stop!

Kind of sinister isn’t it? This is what happens to you if you spend too much time in art galleries you sink into the concrete of life and partially disappear! That unsuspecting lady and her child making their way out of the gallery better watch out, they’re heading for a Doctor Who moment if you ask me, they’re following the straight line to oblivion! Poor unsuspecting fools. Yes, the sunken statue doesn’t look too happy does he? Can’t blame him, whatever has happened to his nipples? They look hammered in. Must be the shock, poor chap!!

Links:

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/

http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/art399888

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/visit/modern-one-23559/room-displays/reflections-creed-lewitt

http://martincreed.com/

Hope you enjoyed my post, have you been to any wonderful art galleries or sculpture parks recently? Or had any Doctor Who moments recently?

Do comment and let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

My Friday Post: Reflections and Easter Wishes

houses-670327_640 South Bohemia Czech republic — South Bohemia Czech Republic

Isn’t this just exquisite? Make me want to visit this beautiful place in the Czech Republic.

Just look how beautiful their painted Easter Eggs are:

thZ5AV8VVR Czech republic easter eggs — Czech Republic Easter Eggs

A Russian Landscape Reflection

thPGC60AN2 — Russian Landscape Reflection pd4pic.com

In Russia you come across these darlings.

Getting back to reflections why are they so beautiful? Does having the image reflected back at you make it more splendid? By tricking your senses you are fooled into believing there is more than one image. Sometimes the photo can seem quite surreal as in the above pink and blue sky scene in which the dark background looks like it is floating in the sky. Next to this there is the water lily which appears to be drowning in its own tiny reflection. In the image of the splendid Taj Mahal, you see the same effect, there is no discrimination, both grand, and everyday, simple treasures are treated the same way!

easter11 — Easter eggs in India. Stutzfamily.com

Have a very Happy Good Friday, and a wonderful Easter break.

Just leaving you with one more reflection, an Easter egg of course!

And ending on a light hearted note. No more reflections. These are a bit of fun, enjoy!

Sorry for being so crackers, just couldn’t resist that one!

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My Friday Post: Celebrating Dragon Delights

Golden Dragon

Oh,

Mighty Dragon

Your fiery dare,

Gleams in a challenge,

No Childish mask,

Highlights your eyes.

Golden elixir promises,

Hang in the air,

Lining up,

To slide off the curve of

Your celebrated tongue.

A challenge!

Adventuress, take a ride.

Will I or forever still,

Remain in this moment,

Too fearful to slip on,

Temptation’s back.

To sail the secretive seas,

Witness the wonder of sunsets,

Smell the sweet aroma of Waterfalls,

Discover Dry Deserts

And Tempting Temples.

Cavernous Canyons,

Concealed Caves,

Resplendent Rainbows,

Rippling Rivers,

Incandescent Islands,

Languid Lakes,

Majestic Mountains,

Too many splendours,

To describe.

I step back from,

Tempestuous skies.

Foolish, I.

Must I question

when I can do.

Trust my,

Ever growing,

Heart’s desire Dragon,

Please.

Take me,

with

you!

Link:

The Incandescent Britania Islands: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/467819/the-incandescent-britania-islands

Cuevas del Drach, in Porto Cristo, Mallorca.

Dragons Lair

I took a risk,

Now I am here,

In Lair,

With you.

Enchantment,

Lingers,

Tapering Black Stalagmite,

Promises.

The still water,

Quietens your flaming fire,

Softens your gentle gaze,

Oh Dragon.

Porto Cristo,

Golden dragon,

I’m forever,

Yours.

Porto Cristo Prisoner,

So In Lair,

With,

You.

Dragon Tree

To fly above the Dragon Tree,

You and Me,

You laughed,

At such suggestiveness.

A Tree yes, a dragon no,

An imposter,

A preposterous,

Poisonous Asparagus.

Hidden Bright Red Resin.

Dragon’s Blood,

Fire once omitted,

No flame.

Oriental Dragon

You grace my table,

My steps and temples,

For 7,000 years

Such splendid majesty.

Meeting you in a cave,

My deepest fears disappear,

For 7,000 years,

Such Enlightenment.

Your creativity,

Is renowned,

For 7,000 years

Such Good Fortune.

Flames of pearl power,

Light up your lightning path,

For 7,000 years,

Guarding Gods palace in heaven.