Sue Finch

THREE TIMES A YARN SHOW

This morning the air at home does not smell of sheep. My eyes are bleary and perhaps this means my sense of smell has not yet awakened, but the first thing I am noticing is what’s not there. And that is the scent of sheep in fields on a farm. Having spent the weekend at a lovely B and B just outside Builth Wells in the beautiful countryside maybe it is just my brain reminding me that I am now back home with a new set of memories made.

Alt text says this week’s photo is “two women smiling at the…” and I am guessing it was going to say camera but instead there are those three little dots. So perhaps it is waiting for me to say: the joy of readying for a yarn show, or the thought that this year while Wonderwool Wales celebrated its twentieth anniversary I was celebrating the fact that this was my third time there being with Kath on her stand, or the way you know you are going to find conversations that make you smile when you spend time with people in a showground. I would say it is all of that, and also the recognition that taking things one step at a time brings elements of calm and satisfaction.

The same stand space for each of the three years enables us to be reliably right there for our regular visitors. It also helps me to know which way I am driving the car and which way I need to walk to get to the things I need. It’s a large site and my sense of direction is a little askew at times so knowing where I am going is super reassuring for me! And as I type this I realise how lucky I am that Kath draws up the plan, gets everything ready, and knows how to pack the cars so that it all fits in. I can copy this once I have seen it, but I would struggle to do this from scratch.

We have developed the art of being steady in our set up and we both know that we will be physically tired that evening. We also know there is likely to be a time when it feels like hard work and we need to pause to drink more water and stand still to stretch our backs out before completing the job. Last year I was training to walk up Snowdon and I realise I haven’t been quite so determined with my walking since then. I don’t need another mountain to climb at the moment, but I think I have just reminded myself that my goal could be to walk myself to better fitness that will hold me in good stead for everyday things! If you’ve ever noticed that your favourite jeans feel a little too tight or tying your shoes seems a little bit too much of a bending effort then you will probably empathise!

Being at a yarn show with hundreds of people is a complete contrast to my one-to-one coaching or the times when it’s just me writing poetry, but there is also a lovely cross over with my values of being helpful, listening to people and taking time for reflection. And this week while simply being in a showground I have felt the lovely tingle of tears of happiness in my eyes when recounting moments that have brought me pure joy in my life and listening to other people tell me theirs. I have laughed a lot and remembered to stay in the moment because after all it is the moment that counts. Oh, and I remembered to still myself and say thank you when complimented by a stranger so that I actually got to feel the complete glow of how that feels.

Here’s to finding the ways we laugh with others, supporting those we love and being ourselves in the moment.

Graphene, from my first collection Magnifying Glass, is shining in my mind as a great poem with which to end this blog…for the wonder of celebrating the shine and the marvel of being human.

Graphene

Perhaps, before their pencil, in that building

it was in me – that flat form carbon atom;

hexagonally honeycombed
undiscovered and waiting.

And before that, did it come from a star?

Maybe it was once inside you.
You are a study in graphene:
cleaved graphite, harder than diamond,

stronger than steel.

Exceptional.

SLOW DOWN

This morning the air is filled with the scent of grass and the sound of birdsong. A blue sky is welcoming the day, and promising warmth soon.

Alt text tells me this week’s photo is a road with words painted on it. It is indeed and it is a photo of what I call the country road where the words SLOW/ARAF are painted. I walked to this area yesterday to take a photo for today’s blog, but the words were very faded so I am using a photo which I think I took during my lockdown walks. Slow is a timely reminder for me right now.

Having talked recently about how important it is to balance self-care and to notice what you need, it almost surprised me that I wasn’t listening to myself. (I say ‘almost’ because I definitely heard the whisper of, you need a couple of early nights!And instead of acknowledging the whisper I chose to ignore it. So my thinking went a bit like this… Feeling a bit more tired than usual? Push on through. Ocular migraine? Have some water and then carry on computing. Unmotivated to prepare dinner from scratch? Bung something in the oven and add peas, and oh yes, carrots because that’ll ramp it up towards the five a day.

And the message from the universe came when said carrots were getting peeled. And I was rushing because I just wanted it done because then I could…uh oh! I temporarily mistook my left index finger for a carrot and managed to potato peel its tip. The fact it was THAT finger made me feel a bit wobbly so after I had rinsed it and hidden it under some firmly gripped kitchen roll, I chopped the carrots nice and small so they would be done in the same time as the peas, and then got Kath to pop a plaster on it to seal it back down so I wouldn’t see it. (THAT finger being the finger I once had an ‘axecident’ with.)

In the morning it looked a little sad when I removed the plaster, but I showered and nothing much happened except it was a little sore. Magic healing, I thought until I hit it on the basin when cleaning my teeth. And then the world went a little narrower than usual and much blacker.

Thank goodness for a wife who bounces out of bed on her only lie-in day, a local minor injuries unit and the kind and gentle nurse who helped me clean it up, applied steri-strips, popped a bandage over it, and told me I wasn’t making a fuss.

So this week I will be re-establishing the joy of focusing on one thing at a time. I will also be remembering to pause for stillness when I can hear that I am carrying a whole conversation of thoughts around in my head. I will be taking time to think about what needs setting down, and what it is that I need to pay attention to. And for an easy and quick reminder, I will be binning all the shoulds. They are definitely not helpful with their not good enough, critical tone. I will instead be thinking about my coulds and exploring their potential benefits and how they match with my wants rather than giving myself a hard time.

And if you see me peeling carrots in the future you will probably notice that I am intentionally quite mindful about it. Here’s to the art of zen peeling and listening to what we need.

I do of course have times when I truly revel in the way my mind can ask lots of questions and go off at different tangents in response to each one. So for this week’s poem I am choosing to share again one that I wrote after tidying my desk one evening. During the day I had been coaching and had also reviewed a list of coaching questions. I wanted to organise my workspace and spend some time with my own creative writing to unwind. One of the questions on the papers I was filing away was: ‘What would you like to achieve?’ This question continued to echo in my head after my desk was clear so I used it as the title and set to writing…

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACHIEVE?

A gold medal pings into my mind as the question lands between us in the silence. But I can’t say gold medal because I don’t know exactly what I want it for. My mind pictures me standing there at the award ceremony, bowing my head forward a little in readiness for the presentation. The ribbon brushes my hair, and I feel the warmth of the fingers of the woman transferring the medal as her hands knock against my ears. My head is cumbersome. People with cumbersome heads shouldn’t be getting medals. The applause suddenly feels false, and I didn’t even hear the start of it. I need to hear the beginning of the congratulatory clap. I need to be in the moment. I change my wish. I want a gold medal that fits easily over my head. No, I know what I want… I want a head that fits through the gap in a medal ribbon without causing a kerfuffle for the person handling the ceremony. I want it all to look flawless so everyone remembers me standing on that podium being given a medal. Given, that’s an interesting word. Medals are won not given. Not in a tombola, one in a hundred chance kind of way. You earn a medal by setting a goal and working on it. Over and over again until you are the best you can be. There’s that question again, What would you like to achieve?

A ROAD TRIP TO NEVERN

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 11^th 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.

BADGER POEMS, METAL SPOONS, AND GENTLE NODS

This morning I stand under three aeroplane contrails to breathe the freshness of the air. The birds are singing the verses that come after dawn chorus, and somewhere far above me there are astronauts in darkness of the moon.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a bottle of pills and a red envelope. I say it is a pill bottle from the Poetry Pharmacy and that the theme for this particular bottle is ‘Badgered’. I also say I am delighted to see my words unfurled from two of the capsules in this selection. I have been a fan of these ‘prescriptions’ for quite some time and love the variety of bottles on offer so it feels particularly cool to have words included.

This week I was dithering about which poem to record for Poem of the Month for my YouTube channel. Fortunately, April Fool’s Day gave me a much-needed inspirational nudge when Matthew MC Smith put out a pretend call for poems about spoons.

As mentioned in my blog in March 2024, a fever that accompanied a virus back then triggered a dream about me turning into a metal spoon and needing to be plucked back from the centre of the earth. This poem had been lingering in my drafts folder since then and so it seemed like a good time to give it a polish and send it into the world. It was also timely in that I had listened on the same day to the Coach Write podcast conversation I had with Helen O’Neill. In that conversation I talked about the importance of reading poetry aloud during the editing process. This reminded me to begin my editing with this strategy, and I am glad I did because what seemed to work on the page sounded clunky and wrong-ordered when read out loud. As a dream inspired poem about spoons I think it now holds its space in the world, and although I was given the wise advice not to count the likes I did chuckle that there was a moment in time when the poem had 1 view and 1 like giving it a temporary ‘100% of viewers like this poem’ rating. Here’s the link if you want to see if you like such things: THE NIGHT I TURNED TO METAL.

For this week’s blog poem I turn to Brock which was written during a poetry workshop with Clare Shaw and Miriam Darlington where the focus was badgers. Hence the picture I chose for this week’s main photograph. I loved the immersion in badger facts and finding out more about these wonderful creatures, and I loved the space in which to write these particular words.

I choose to share this poem again today even though it has been shared in my blog before because for me it has a gentle nod to my lovely Dad who died peacefully just after midnight on 6^th April 2025 and today it feels strange to think that a year has passed since this happened. He is worth all the gentle nods.

BROCK

In the dark of night

the silvered wisdom of a badger’s soul

lifts from its body,

rises above that final puff of breath,

leaves behind white bristles and black fur.

On the cusp of day,

in the silence between dust and sparkle,

the echoes are beginning.

Be steady along familiar routes,

mark out your path.

Be the shy, tenacious forager,

know the quiet of nature.

A TRIP TO LONDON TOWN

This morning the air brings me the notes of new carpet off gassing in a Premier Inn and mixes in essence of chilled seaside town air. A soundtrack of traffic plays like urban waves in the background.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a person holding a book in front of a bookcase. I say it is me visiting the National Poetry Library in London and not being able to resist a photo with my second full collection of poetry Welcome to the Museum of a Life published by Black Eyes Publishing UK. I also say this feels particularly apt given that I am a guest on Helen O’Neill’s Coach Write podcast this week. We had a wonderful chat about coaching, poetry and the journey to having books in the world, and it felt good to be a guest. I like listening to people talk on podcasts and I like being asked to talk too. It also makes me chuckle that the episode will air on the first of April!

The main focus of the visit to London was seeing the Manic Street Preachers headlining at The Royal Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust. It was a fantastic concert opening with Motorcycle Emptiness and ending under a raining down of confetti during If You Tolerate This. That opening song was a moment of absolute tingle for me as I realised I was standing in the now, watching the band perform live, while also watching the original music video from all those years ago projected onto the screen behind them. A wonderful mingling of right now and back then. There was something beautifully pure about this. Later on I felt myself held still during the wonderful performance of This Is Yesterday which is one of my absolute favourite songs, and I don’t think I moved a muscle. There was plenty of time for movement during the set and I loved being surrounded by the energy of others in the crowd, but I do also love the parts where I am standing in the moment relishing the experience.

On the return train journey the following day lines from Roses In The Hospital came to mind when I had my first experience of a rail replacement bus service. If you don’t know that song the words “forever delayed” are repeated! I saw parts of Medway I had never seen before as the coaches we boarded wiggled their way from Gillingham visiting all the stations that the train would have stopped at during what felt like a pretty busy rush hour. Overall I enjoyed revisiting journeys by trains, but am not sure I would have been quite so chilled about the delayed parts if I had been on my own or if I had been timetabled to be at my destination at a specific time!

It was good to get my steps in in the big city and to see the sights. I enjoyed seeing people taking photos of themselves on bridges and with landmarks. I also noticed a particular street where people were pausing by red phone boxes and posing for photographs. Thinking about this and having all those Manic Street Preachers songs echoing in my head brings this poem from my first collection Magnifying Glass to mind…

Phoning Richey Edwards

no landline, no mobile, the call was made from a phone box

Stagnant air moved as I entered

disturbing sour nicotine, old urine.

Dampened cigarette ends lay split open

orange tobacco strands twisting out

like untidy moustache hairs.

Pockets loaded with coins I was ready.

Above staleness another smell rose;

the shelved phonebook, its pages thumbed and flicked.

I was ringing to say happy birthday,

he was called to the phone
as if he might know who I was.

We spoke, but I can’t recall the words.
I have an echo of a gentle lilt
that floats across my mind from time to time.

I called; we spoke.
I wish I had the words.

A DAFFODILESQUE DALEK, THE FIRST MOW, AND THE MUSE

This morning the air mingles the scent of warm Premier Inn and fresh grass into a cloudy mix.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a yellow flower in the grass. I say it is my shadow featuring a midforehead daffodil. I also say I was rather hoping to create a daffodilesque dalek photo. I guess it is distinctly unlikely that alt text would come up with that description even if the photo was on point, but perhaps I also didn’t pull it off quite as I had planned. It was fun though and it was taken during my daffodil noticing/clear my head/have a think walk one sunny morning last week.

Jobs have been calling to me this week… “Look, the sun’s shining, if you clean me you can hang the washing out.” was the cry from the washing line.“You feel better with a haircut – what about us?” the mini lawns were imploring.

And at the same time my energy levels were feeling a little depleted, so rebalancing has been an important thing to focus on as well as remembering how motivating it is to get the jobs done rather than carrying the thought of them around in my head whilst trying to concentrate on something else. I reminded myself that I could always use my trick of timing myself to do a job like I did when I wasn’t sure I could persuade myself that cleaning the windows was going to fit into my day. But these jobs were different and the joy was always going to be in the end result and the fact they lead so nicely into the welcoming of the season of spring. (I still like the moment of personal development that came about after timing myself to clean the windows… this being that my ultimate motivation is to complete the task shortly after sunrise whilst wearing my pyjamas.)

Pleasingly Claire Pedrick’s second edition of Simplifying Coaching was out on Monday and I knew that this would be an informative and restorative read to slot into my week. Two early morning reading slots and one I want to finish this tonight slot and I had read the book from cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is an excellent read for all coaches and a wonderful build on the first version which was already a favourite coaching book for me. Highly recommended to all coaches. I also love the fact that there is a little quote from me in the book…how cool is that?

There’s been a good sprinkling of words in my week all round because as well as reading I have been writing. One of my favourite ways to write poetry is when there is a compelling feeling of being pulled to set something down. This week my sister was my muse. We had been talking on the phone and after telling me something she hadn’t told me before she said it would make a good poem if I wanted to write it. I pondered on what she had said on one of my walks and came back with a pretty much fully formed poem. I remembered to leave it to rest overnight as well as read it out loud to check it sounded right before editing it and smoothing its edges. Then I recorded it as a voice note and sent it to her. We both agree that is has something special about it so I am hoping it will find a home in the not-too-distant future.

This week I choose to share a poem that was written to set down a moment in time when something shiny caught my eye in a supermarket car park in Canterbury.

THE BALL BEARING

The shine and the surprise of it

rolled to a stop in a gravel dip

in a wet car park.

Almost a marble from my childhood;

a mini, silvered moon

cratered and old.

Glimpsing it made us smile

and you knew

I wanted to hold the heaviness of it.

STUNT GIRL

This morning the air is delightfully fresh. I sense spring and I feel the contrast of what I breathe this morning with the city air I breathed at the weekend. It is wonderfully refreshing to stand still in the new day.

Alt text says this week’s photo shows a person smiling holding a book. It does indeed! And it is me, wearing a Stunt Girl t-shirt, holding a copy of Safety in Numbers.

Once when wearing this t-shirt I was asked by a stranger what my stunts were. I answered with, “I eat fire whilst unicycling.” This had them leaning in with, “Really?” before we both stood in a moment of disappointment as I admitted that this was in fact an untruth. This interaction, and the fact that I have also been asked if I am a trapeze artist, came to mind when I was writing the poem that I would submit to the Safety In Numbers project.

Each of the poets involved in the project, which was designed by Gill Connors, was sent a poem as part of a chain and asked to write a poem in response to it. I remember being excited when I saw that a poem had arrived in my inbox. I purposefully did not open the email until I had time to be at my writing desk with a dedicated time to think and write because I was keen to capture my response as cleanly as possible.

Firstly, I read the poem on the page in the same way that I read all poems that I am meeting for the first time. Then to increase my interaction and feel for the poem I read it out loud to myself. My usual way of starting the drafting of a poem when I know I am going to write is to use a fountain pen and a notebook. On this occasion I jotted down the parts of the received poem that resonated with me most strongly and let my mind take these thoughts for a walk. I found myself focussed on plate spinning, things imagined, and the passing of time. An idea began to emerge around the comments related to the t-shirt and the fact I had invented a persona that was beautifully fantastical.

Once I have ideas for a poem, I like to swap to typing into a word document so I can chop and change words and lines easily as the poem takes shape. Forming the whole on a clean page helps me think. I used this method to form a solid draft before rereading the poem I had received to find out if I could sense a link. I decided that I could, and that the evolution of a new poem from one read was happening naturally and in that sense, it was good to just go with it. After spending a little more time drafting and editing my work and reading it aloud, I left it alone overnight.

The next day when I returned to it I did my best to reread it with fresh eyes to spot any parts that did not flow or were in need of tightening. I wanted the person who I followed in the chain to be pleased with the response and to find something of interest in it. When reading my poem I could feel a thread that linked us, and yet the poem was definitely a Sue Finch poem that had been asking to be written. Pleasingly, I don’t think this poem would have emerged without me taking part in this project and I am very grateful to have been involved for that reason and because the whole set of linked poems is fascinating. Themes pop in and out in the different chains and that feels like a dance and a song all at once as you read.

Here’s Stunt Girl from the Yaffle Press anthology Safety In Numbers

Stunt Girl

She wore a t-shirt with that slogan.

Most people passed her by and said nothing.

But one day someone asked her

what her trick was. Her eyes sparkled

as she pictured all the circus acts she’d seen.

She knew she could throw axes,

yet her tendency for distraction might be fatal.

Wearing lycra to be fired out of a cannon

wouldn’t suit,

and her timing ruled her out

of the flying trapeze.

She wondered if she could tame a lion,

juggle five knives.

I eat fire whilst riding a unicycle, she replied.

She remembers vividly

the disappointment in their eyes

when they leant in for detail,

and she had to admit it wasn’t true.

I wear baggy trousers,

I’m a plate-spinning clown,

she thought to herself as her heart sank,

and I’ve been walking a tightrope all my life.

THIS MORNING, WOOD PIGEONS

This morning, wood pigeons are sounding their calls and I remember them heralding in the sunny days of my youth. The air carries definite hints of spring, and I call the scent raw floral as I am transported back to my time of harvesting daffodil bulbs. Last night’s mist has cleared and the day is beginning to be seen.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a group of books on a patterned surface. I say it is three elements of the post I received on Saturday. I also say it is an absolute delight (and indeed a rarity) to receive three wonderful things in the post on the same day. It also tied in well with my recent thoughts about surprise and anticipation. (More about the excellent book Safety In Numbers soon, but if you have read it or been to any of the launches so far you will know it is a thing of beauty. I heartily congratulate Gill Connors on bringing this book into the world.)

I’ll delve a bit into anticipation which is one of my favourite feelings. I’ll also clarify this by saying it’s the version of anticipation that involves looking forward to something rather than the anticipation of something that might go wrong. Positive anticipation is a wonderful fizzy kind of feeling for me, and I was thinking about it as a particular kind of joy recently, and sensing that something felt different about it. I realised that there doesn’t always need to be an extended period of anticipation now for it to feel exciting to me. It can be a plan made the night before or taking time to linger in the thought of what lies ahead in the day. I think I might have got better at seizing moments of anticipation.

Just when I was congratulating myself for what seemed to be a good step forward, I thought about something that often accompanies anticipation for me. And that is preparedness. I was thinking that this makes me a good travel companion because I tend to have things with me just in case. Spare sanitary towels? No problem. Need a painkiller? No problem. Got bitten by an insect? Here’s some bite cream. (The list goes on trust me!)

Which got me to thinking maybe those two feelings – anticipation and preparedness – are a perfect pairing. Perhaps I have got better at enjoying anticipation and am more ready for it because I am good at being prepared. I was ready to praise myself for the way the two things entwine when I remembered how heavy my overnight bag is. Possibly much heavier than it needs to be. This isn’t too bad when it gets taken straight from the car to the hotel, but I definitely notice it when I have to carry it that bit further. That moment when I change arms for the third time and the muscles still burn, and I wonder why I haven’t just brought one clean pair of pants and a toothbrush. I thought about changing my bag for one with wheels to combat the weight and then I got to wondering whether I could change my habits and pack more lightly.

There was something freeing about thinking of not carrying so much stuff. But that would mean letting go of some of the items that contribute to my preparedness, and I do like to be prepared. At this point I decided to look up the definition of preparedness, fully expecting my Google search to confirm it as a positive and sensible readiness. And yet there before my eyes were the words disaster, emergency, and risk. Those three words resonated more than I had anticipated!

Time to take some action, and in case you’re wondering how it’s going…so far I have removed two of the spare packets of tissues from my bag, halved the painkillers, ditched the tube of burn cream, decided to invest in a small rucksack for overnight stays, and booked a trip on a paddle steamer!

This poem, taken from my first collection Magnifying Glass, captures a moment in time of standing in anticipation of a childhood day that is unfolding.

CAPS IN HER GUN

She has the smell of thin, brown leather

in her nose,

a print of softness on its tip

from kissing Orinoco’s hat.

She has tucked up the toys in her bed,

wished herself a cowboy for the day.

Holster on, bandana tied, sheriff badge shining,

she stands tall, shoulders wide.

Caps in her gun,

ready to shoot.

BREATHING THE SCENTED AIR

This morning a chorus from herring gulls welcomed in the morning, and the wind is swirling and mixing the scents of flowers and green.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a person holding a drink and a plate of food. I say it is me enjoying a sit down in a café at Chester Zoo with a drink and a doughnut after visiting a range of animals including a gorgeous tapir that seemed pleased that I told it that I thought it was gorgeous.

The first of March brought sunshine and gifted the perfect day to walk round The Great Orme in Llandudno. There were plenty of fresh smells to delight the senses for my sister and I. After the foodie smells from the doughnuts and onions on the pier, we had the herby scent of grass and gorse mingling with the fresh sea air as we headed round the coastal edge. There was a moment of pure contrast when a strong smell of fish puffed up from the cove below us where we had stopped to watch the seals swimming in the water. We moved along a little when this one hit our noses! This was the first time we have walked whilst the tide has been in and covered the area of beach that we usually watch the seals on. It was lovely to see them swimming in pairs and curving their bodies in the water as well as the familiar sight of curious heads bobbed up through the waves.

My sister, Katie, said that when she comes to Wales she enjoys the fact that she experiences an extended range of smells. She reports that for her the scents in Kent often fall into the following four distinct categories:

Normal
Cold
Fresh
Fumy

She also reports that the water in St Winefride’s Well is cold, and well worth taking a paddle in. This was one of the highlights of her trip up this time and as well as drinking some well water she has a small bottle to take home with her. We are saving the full immersion experience for when the weather is a little warmer. It’s always good to have another trip to look forward to and although we know the water is unlikely to be much higher in temperature we will at least be coming out into warmer air.

Here’s to all the scents that are noticed and enjoyed this week, and here’s a seal poem I once wrote after watching for seals at The Little Orme…

SEAL AT ANGEL BAY

She sits on the cliff watching the water.

He is a rounded head buoyant in the centre.

Something on the air tumbled by the wind

interrupts him;

eyes and nostrils flick open

revealing stone-black depths.

Lines of sunlight silver the waves

diminishing her thoughts

of the iodine seaweed smell,

that mingling of fish and brine

that says he hunts the raw.

He is surveying the surface nonchalantly.

Soon he will be gone again;

under the waves

for long stitched-together minutes.

Tight solid fat turns to glistening grey.

She too stirs, as he curves into the thick water.

I SEE BLUE SKY

This morning the air holds the scent of green and unfurling. The birds are well awake when I step outside and are singing to each other of a new day to be in, seemingly unbothered by the wind.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a tree with no leaves. I say it is blue sky framing the branches of a tree, and that it delighted my heart to be walking under it.

After last weekend’s yarn show I set myself a catching up kind of a week. The kind where sparkly conversations with good friends featured amongst time to tackle admin type things and time to see if the poems that wait patiently in the draft folder are ready for polishing. The kind of week without a particular routine which allowed for resting and for seizing the moment when there was a gap in the rain to take a daily stroll.

It was good to get out for daily walks again after having recently had to wait for my cough to diminish. I felt my body easing its way back in to striding out and being glad for being out in the fresh air. I also realised how much I had missed listening to music for that dedicated segment of the day. My soul shines more fully when the right sounds are in the day. The country road route is currently muddy and wet, but I like its familiarity as I get back into the swing of things. The fact that walking this route takes as long as listening to the album Personal History by Mary Chapin Carpenter is also rather splendid.

It was good to have a free and easy week, it felt rather like having a springboard to jump from on the journey towards spring. Spring is my favourite season, and I love the feeling of entering it with a sense of renewal and to revelling in the newness it offers. So many reminders of growth as the rhubarb stretches out new stems and the snowdrops flourish in the borders. Mixing these wonderful visuals in with the joy of lengthened days makes so much seem possible. It even had me venturing into the garden with a pair of secateurs to begin the big tidy up.

When I realised how much the darker days of winter affected me, I made conscious efforts to find joy within the season itself. Hot chocolate, walks wrapped up in cosy knitwear, dedicated writing time, blankets, candles and films all played their role. And possibly the most helpful of all was visualising myself on the path towards the change of season. Much like the country road right now that path has muddy patches, but there is joy in the meanders it takes and to the way it alters under frost and snow and changes of light. And when it’s dark under a new moon I remember it is a moment in time. A time to realise that standing in the darkness can be a thing of its own. A time to pause and breathe before the waxing begins again. A time of anticipation.

I thought I would be including a seasonal poem this week, but this one comes to mind for me instead because there seems to be something coming up for me about standing in the moment and noticing…

My thanks to Black Bough Poetry for featuring this poem on the Silver Branch series.

I’VE COME TO THE DESERT TO SEE THE SAND

I know now not to try

to count the grains.

There will always be those missed

because they’re lodged in fingernails

or hiding their casual grit

in peoples’ stomachs;

grazed first by molars, then swallowed

before they could be tongued and spat out.

And that softness when you let it fall

through your fingers isn’t real –

there is hardness there.

Even the colour diminishes

when you separate the grains.

You would need a microscope

to bring the beauty back.

Instead of counting

I stand

lift my head

just look at that sand.