This morning there is frost on the grass. The chill dampens the scent of primulas, and the air carries elements of their perfume with a mixed in twiggyness.
Alt text says this week’s photo is a person standing in front of a stone pillar. I say it is Kath wrapped in her Nevern Blanket at The Nevern Cross in Pembrokeshire.
I have often been heard to say that the roads might be too busy on Bank Holiday Mondays for road trips, but not this time. This time I asked Kath if she wanted to come on a trip to celebrate her blanket design, and we drove the three-and-a-half-hour journey along the coast road to Nevern.
The roads dizzied my head, the sun shone, and Kath smiled. And it was the perfect road trip. There was a real joy to standing in the churchyard to photograph my wife next to this spectacular 11th Century Cross. I took one hundred photos so that we could be pretty sure that there would be enough to choose from to showcase the way these beautiful carvings have been set down in yarn in this design. I like the one I chose for the main photo for this week’s blog and I also like this one which seems like a special kind of designer’s semaphore.
I had one of those moments last week where I thought I would put off doing something until next time I had the opportunity. Luckily my thoughts stopped me in my tracks and nudged me into thinking how good it would feel to do the thing and know I had done it. I liked the fact that my thoughts were giving me the nod that I could just get on and do the thing. And when I stood in the moment to think about it, I realised it would be the same feeling of being a little bit scary whether I did it this time or next, and therefore it made sense just to crack on and do it. My mission? To pop into a book shop and ask if they would be willing to stock my poetry books. Three things also spurred me on:
- Helen O’Neill asking, “Where can people find your poetry?”
- My commitment to being 10% braver (thank you Jaz Ampaw Farr).
- This lovely feedback from someone who messaged me recently after buying a copy of one of my books… “I picked up ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’ today after reading two poems standing in the bookshop! I couldn’t put it down…. The Telford Warehouse poem stopped me completely…”
So this week I am celebrating seizing the moment, the positive role of self-talk and the things and people that spur us on.
And if you would like an additional piece of wisdom here’s a wonderful question that I was introduced to recently by someone I shared thinking time and space with: “What can I not do today?” It’s now one of my favourite early morning questions.
Because this poem was shared this week by Susan Richardson I thought I would share it here too…
We Few Deified We Few
Wanting us to feast differently
I filled a basket with fiddlehead ferns
right to the brim for you:
ostrich fern, lady fern, bracken.
Tossing their bitterness
with garlic and rock salt.
Look, I tell you, I have foraged
this taste for you.
I let lemon zest fall on
those curled caterpillars
amongst the charred green-brown leaves.
We do not mention
that vague muddiness on our tongues.
We do not mention,
amongst the charred green-brown leaves,
those curled caterpillars.
I let lemon zest fall on
this taste for you.
Look, I tell you, I have foraged.
With garlic and rock salt
tossing their bitterness;
ostrich fern, lady fern, bracken.
Right to the brim for you
I filled a basket with fiddlehead ferns;
wanting us to feast differently.
Sue Finch 