Today I learned

all sorts of things.  Keeping my notebook close to hand and jotting down this and that throughout the day is a great exercise and though I’ve usually got a small book to hand with a pencil tucked inside, Shimelle’s class prompts me to pay a little more attention and take a few more notes.

For example, a conversation with a WI friend this morning gave me cause to investigate the Order of St Lazarus and St John and the Queenhithe Ward Club.  I was writing a report for our monthly newsletter about the lovely people we’ve entertained to lunch during the past month and of course, instantly learned a great deal from five minutes googling.

Would I feature this on my daily page?  Possibly.

But a little later on, I was in the kitchen listening to Radio 3 and heard Sarah Walker play Rameau’s La Poule.  She introduced it by stating it was her favourite piece of music featuring chickens.

Huh?

My hero and I mulled over this and considered alternatives, if indeed there were any?  The first one he came up with was the Funky Chicken or the Birdie Song and reacting quickly before this could be taken any further (please, use your imagination!) I was humming the tune I associated with chickens.

“You know, da da da-da da, da da da-da da, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo..” (as so on).

Well, I was up to my elbows in flour and sugar at the time, baking a birthday cake for a colleague to take to my meeting yesterday afternoon.

My hero sighed and realised I wasn’t going to leave it there.  He got out his iphone and looked for “chicken” on Spotify.  There appeared a long list of weird and totally offbeat answers, none of which bore any resemblance to the music I was thinking of.

“It’s by Debussy or Mussorgsky,” I said.  “Might be Pictures at an Exhibition.  you know…da da da-da da, da da da-da da, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo..”

One click and it was playing.  Baba Yaga’s Hut on Chicken Legs.

So, my page for today’s LSNED class features the story presented in the same format as I’m working in for this book.  The page is an envelope made from a magazine page (I think this was a photo of a staircase in a grand house), the brief journalling is printed onto a shipping label (happily acccepted by my HP printer if I whisper “epson” very quietly in its ear as I press the “print” button) and the full story on a card inside the envelope, together with any other ephemera from the day.  The picture is from a favourite film, Howls Moving Castle, which was loosely based on the Baba Yaga story.

What on earth will I learn today?!