PONDERING THE POSSIBLE

This morning the air brings a vanilla scent – essence of cake not ice-cream which seems strange given the iced snow that covers one side of the pavement. Somewhere above the clouds the moon is waxing to fullness, and I realise I don’t know what vanilla looks like before it becomes darkened pods. Gentle trickles of water and the fact the cold doesn’t reach my bones as soon as I am outside tell me the temperature is rising.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a sign on a wall. I say it is the Ponderosa sign with a cardboard cutout of Dolly Parton on top of the wall. I won the cutout in a competition some years ago and enjoyed taking it on a little tour! The picture seems apt given that the following snippet from an interview with Dolly Parton has floated in and out of my mind over the past couple of weeks while we have not had access to a shower: “In the winter time, we just had a pan of water and we’d wash down as far as possible, and we’d wash up as far as possible,” she says of her childhood days in rural Locust Ridge, Tennessee, a mountain community in the northern valley of the Great Smoky Mountains. “Then, when somebody cleared the room, we’d wash ‘possible.’ That’s the way it was.”

I definitely lingered in the shower when we booked into a hotel for a couple of nights and let myself revel in the absolute joy of being in the moment under plentiful running hot water. It brought to mind the feeling of having the first bath or shower after a week’s residential trip. Always welcome, but the one that topped the lot came about after a camping trip with a group where all washing had to be done at the basins in the shared toilet block which never seemed to be empty, and because of the rain, always had a full range of muddy footprints of different sizes on the floor. When the children went out for the day on a trip with another group of staff I decided I would seize the moment to treat myself. I found one of the six old brown washing-up bowls that we had used to transport the trangias after we had put washing-up liquid on the outside, boiled a kettle and gave myself a ‘foot spa’. I washed the bowl thoroughly afterwards and returned it. What I didn’t know was that a visiting cook would choose those large washing-up bowls as the perfect thing for making that evening’s butterscotch dessert in.

My exercise this week came in the form of arriving home and needing to shovel the snow off the driveway. This was the first snow that I have cleared here that I haven’t watched fall. It was a satisfying job because it had compacted and therefore came off in slices that I could shovel up and sling into a large pile. I do like this kind of physical movement, and it reminded me of when we first moved in here and the whole back garden needed clearing and digging over. The poor mrytle having just recovered from the last heavy snow now has another broken branch and looks to be entering the spring in a strange shape this year. Which reminds me… I need to pick up the pace with my walking exercise. I have missed seeing the graphs, and numbers on my fitness apps track my progress. I think they think I have hibernated. Here’s to regenerating my morning motivation to start the day well, and to preparing for my Snowdon climb later this year. It’s been quite some years since I last walked up, and I think I need to get cracking on the preparation so that it becomes possible to enjoy the whole experience. I am holding onto the fact that every walk I take is part of the journey to improved fitness, and being in a better physical shape. Steps I take now will make future steps easier.

We were late putting the Christmas tree away and finally managed it this weekend. Just when I was deciding whether to make the journey to the under the house storage to put it away or put the kettle on, there was a loud rumble as the snow on the back roof slumped to the ground. My momentary laziness saved me from having all that fall on my head! My knees also saved me from a sore nose when I decided it would be a good idea to take a photo of my face print in the snow. (I saw someone do this online and it looked pretty impressive in the same way those pin frames used to so I decided this would be a new kind of photo for me.) I put some cardboard down to kneel on and then used my hands to steady myself before getting ready to go full in. My hands did not even dent the snow because it was like ice! I am glad I found this out before putting my face in. I guess I will need to wait for fluffy snow for this kind of photo opportunity.

This week I choose to share ‘Car’ by Sarah Connor. I am lucky to have known Sarah as a poet and blogger and am grateful for the sparkle she put in the world.

Car

This car is full of ghosts – echoes of us,

trailing muddy boots, wet swimming costumes, snatched coffees.

Oh, we’ve lived here. Spilt water, secrets, fizzy drinks.

Shouted – at the radio, at the sat nav,

at each other. Told our stories of successes and betrayals.

We’ve slept here, heads lolling

on the long road north.

We’ll clean it out before we sell it:

gather up old receipts for faded clothes,

stray Lego bricks and crumbs and seashells

that we gathered and forgot about.

Perhaps the future owner will still feel us

there – a waft of woodsmoke, or of chlorine,

or ice-cream’s vanilla kiss. Perhaps

a giggle or a grumble from the back –

or perhaps the radio will play

an old Ed Sheeran song,

and we’ll be there, singing along –

some of us out of key, or out of time –

still driving down these country roads.

READER, I DONNED ‘EM

This morning the air smells cold, and there is a transparency to its freshness. I think I almost catch an essence of almonds, but am mistaken. Soft flakes of snow float down before turning to rain.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a person and a person wearing Christmas lights. I say it is me and my big bro donning the fairy lights, and smiling for a photo. I enjoyed a range of family photographs with the lights, but did not manage to capture any ‘head through the festive wreath’ photos this time round. I will hold that thought for next year and find a nice one to take on my travels with me. The lights were good though and even helped my visibility on a slightly foggy evening on a stroll to meet with dear friends when we were on our travels down south.

It was foggy again on Christmas Eve which gave the perfect opportunity to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with gusto. I don’t remember being out on a foggy Christmas Eve before, and I liked the fact that finally it matched the lyrics of the song. I didn’t see the reindeer though. Not like when I was little and I swear I got out of bed in my attic bedroom when I heard sleigh bells, to see Santa’s sleigh pulling up into the sky by the light of the moon. I also swear its image was etched in the ice on the window as proof when I wondered if it had been real.

This year gave me my first real experience of not knowing what day it is in the period between Christmas and New Year. I have never really experienced this vividly before, although I do understand the way days can roll into one when routine is not in place. But this year events mixed things around and I had Fridays that felt like Saturdays so it seemed I did the same day twice, and I thought it was still New Year’s Eve on New Years Day because I didn’t stay up for a midnight walk this year. There was a need to be away from home longer than planned which led to me driving home to pick up medication that I needed. Having identified a window of opportunity before the forecast snow was due I found myself briefly back at base packing some bits and pieces and substituting two mince pies, a bag of crisps and four biscuits for a healthy dinner. It was delicious and hit the spot, but made me chuckle as it probably wasn’t in line with my Snowdon training. 2025 is the year that my sister and I will climb Snowdon so that we arrive at the summit for sunrise. A guided walk for charity because we want to raise money for Cancer Research, and also because we are not competent to find our own way very far in the dark let alone up a mountain.

I have set resolutions along the lines of ‘to get fit’ in the past, but this year’s goal of being fit enough to enjoy walking up Snowdon seems much more focused and more fun. I haven’t walked my daily steps yet this year, but there are milestones in place that will help with this and our date is in September which allows plenty of time.

Holding steady in more difficult times reminds me why I love to celebrate joys of all shapes, sizes and intensity. The joy of watching my family unwrap their presents, the joy of seeing what people chose to gift to me, the joy of shared meals, quizzes, laughter, fairy lights, half price mince pies, Brussels sprouts that travelled many miles in the car, the moon with Venus on a clear night.  

Today I will share a poem I wrote on the 6th January 2019:

Epiphany

Today the sea danced.

Rocking and rolling brand new rhythms,

flirting with the sky for colour change.

Slapping out its energy, it lifted itself

sent its white curls up and over.

On the wet width of the promenade

we stepped a hurried waltz

to dodge its high jinks.

Stopping to frame the horizon

I caught the scent of summer –

cold but definite.

Against shades of blue,

stirred with the grey-green,

you smiled.

At last you let me photograph you.

DONNING THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS FOR SHENANIGANS

This morning one star holds fast in the sky as the wind blows in swirls. The moon was full yesterday, and it was Cold Moon. I have my sense of taste and smell back, but this morning I can only determine a slight essence of cold box and those frozen blue slabs that keep the temperature of such things cool.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a stuffed animal with lights around it. I say it is the photo of Ronnie from this time last year, and he is celebrating all those people who add sparkle to the world.

Shenanigans. I love this word, and its recent regularity in my life. In fact I would highly recommend having a friend who responds positively to invitations for shenanigans soon. Although having said that, when I sent one such message the other day I had to check I’d sent it to the right person because there might be contacts in my phone who would wonder quite what was on offer when receiving a message that says, “Do you fancy shenanigans again soon?”

I had a thing about checking the meaning of words a little while ago when I found myself wanting to see the two different meanings of shenanigans and to check my use of the word enterprise. I had forgotten what first attracted me to the word enterprise and was delighted to see the following definition: a project or undertaking, especially a bold or complex one. Bold, I like bold.

There’s the jaguar (enterprise) and the playful cat (shenanigans) showing themselves again! Having learned a lot this past year about how these two elements of my personality come into play I reckon 2025 might be the year in which I can learn to balance them particularly well. It will definitely be fun finding out.

In the meantime, this festive season I am making it my mission to wear my Christmas lights on as many special occasions as possible. I have decided they can enhance even more things as well as being donned for waving to Father Christmas, and being worn to seasonal poetry events. There might even be some good photo opportunities along the way. We got a memorable set of pictures on a Staff Christmas Do many moons ago where we each took a turn putting our head through the venue’s Christmas Wreath so it might be time to recreate that kind of picture too if I see one when I am out and about. It is nice to be contemplating such things after being laid low by covid and having a couple of days where the energy for such things seemed somewhat depleted. Here’s to all kinds of frivolous joy and merriment.

This time last year I was celebrating the completion of the taught part of my coaching qualification and remembering not to wait until the very end of something to celebrate it. There’s something about taking time to pause on the journey to take stock. A real value in taking time to see where you have come from and give a gentle nod to where next without being focused on what you consider to be the finishing line. It was also at this time that I invited people to share a hot chocolate with me in celebration. I rather like the idea of another shared hot chocolate moment so if you’re up for it, do make one and raise a toast to something that you are currently celebrating, and I will raise a toast to you as I drink mine. I will start by toasting a wonderful friend who recently completed a Diploma in Mental Health Leadership. She already does superbly valuable work, and I love that she has continued with studying and gained a new qualification.

Last week I recorded my poem ‘Snow’ in celebration of its publication in the Black Bough Christmas & Winter Anthology. I have received some lovely comments about the reading and there is a real joy for me in being able to do this and to see how far I have come in building my confidence to record my work. The Black Bough anthology includes a wonderful range of writing, and I always feel proud to be in the pages. Last year it allowed me to set down on the page our family tradition of The Man in the Moon which began when my sister was little. In evenings in the lead up to Christmas I would take her out for a walk to breathe the magical air of Christmas and as we were walking the Man in the Moon would send us clementines. They always tasted extra delicious from being out in the cold.

Writing each year for possible inclusion in the pages of the anthology has enabled me to reflect on a season that I used to dislike, and I have thoroughly enjoyed finding out which bits I particularly love and want to celebrate. The following poems have all featured in the pages and give a flavour of my reflection on the season…

WINTER’S THREAT

I remember winter’s threats from past years.

He says he will work in all the dark hours.

He says he’ll be spinning out discs of ice

setting slip traps.

He sends hints of snow,

a taster of what will be dumped down later.

He hangs the cold crescent moon in the sky.

I long to curl in silent hibernation.

OUR MAN IN THE MOON

Sleight of hand when darkness settles.

We are out to breathe

the magical air of Christmas.

You look in wonder

as the Man in the Moon

sends a clementine fresh from the sky.

Brightest of oranges.

Each segment refreshing cold.

SNOW

I could feel the weight

of the approaching fall

even before it came.

The sky a heavy yellowed grey,

that scent in the air nudging me with its cold hints.

I swore to love it this time

to watch the flakes spin down.

No more willing it to stop.

I stood under a low-slung crescent moon,

marvelled at the layering

of all those six-pointed stars.

May your festive season have moments of merriment and joy that etch themselves on your heart.

A YELLOW SALT DOUGH STAR

This morning the air does not smell like the aisle with lots of candles in it at the supermarket, nor does it smell like last night’s paprika in oil casserole starter. And this means that for the first time since starting this blog in September 2023 I cannot report what Monday smells like. My sense of taste and smell have been affected by covid this past week. I can sense there is taste to things and luckily, I have a good imagination so can sort of sense the flavour of things I am eating, but only salt actually registers. And as for smell, the only things that have been evident since Friday are that supermarket scent and the beginning of yesterday’s dinner, and even those were dim.

Although covid greyed my week it had a wonderful beginning … Good company and the kind of conversation that makes time fly over a delicious and leisurely lunch at Shrub in Chester. It was lovely to eat out there for the first time and experience excellent service and quality dishes. The small plates were decent sized plates, and the flavours were wonderful. It was pleasing to find that having sat and relaxed after our main courses there was even room for pudding later on.

It was this time of year many, many moons ago when I found myself invited to a ‘posh’ dinner for the first time. I remember feeling distinctly unready. I was unsure what to wear and worried that I wouldn’t know which cutlery to use for each of the different courses, so I asked for advice beforehand. “It’s easy you just eat from the outside in,” was what I was told. As a result, I spent a long time at that dinner eating my meal in concentric circles. My concentration was superb and at least it slowed my eating pace. they meant the cutlery of course, but if you don’t know you don’t know, and I didn’t know.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a stuffed toy bird on a Christmas tree. I say it is a robin with beautiful googly eyes wearing a Christmas hat with a bell. I also say let’s not forget Fir Cone Friend in the background. The robin is one of a set of three, each with their own unique characteristics including the one who lost an eye last year and now has one large googly eye and one medium! I love remembering where decorations first came from and although a yellow salt dough star gifted to me by a child in 2013 is beginning to diminish somewhat it definitely sparkled with magic and memories when it came out of the box … for the child who made it and for lovely Jo who also got one, always kept it and also loved it.

While dropping off to sleep during the week I was amused to find myself dreaming that I was a gingerbread biscuit on a baking tray. I could feel the metal underneath me and was hugely impressed by my own flatness. There seems to be a thing about transformation for me that occurs on the edge of sleep lately. Having vividly been a spoon and a biscuit I wonder what I might be next!

Tidying my desk this week I decided to recycle some old notebooks and refresh my supplies. I am attending a writing masterclass with Caroline Bird this week and starting a new journal now will set me up for writing in the new year. I found a few bits and pieces that I had started and not finished so have set these aside to come back to. I also found a notebook with just one page written on. It seems that in January 2024 I recorded my 12 ‘leave behinds’ and my 12 ‘bring forwards’ and then shelved the book! Having not revisited the lists since documenting them I reread them through half closed eyes in case I had not met my aims!

Here are the lists:

  1. Nervous voice/lack of self-belief/silence/improper silence/ nervous voice/lack of self-belief/silence/improper silence/nervous voice/lack of self-belief/silence/improper silence/nervous voice
  2. Singing voice/can do it attitude/collaboration/networking/conversation starters/coaching/celebrating me/joy identified/seeking opportunities/Me Mondays/mini travels/celebrating special people/poetry performance

It seems I couldn’t count, but I love my progress! I also love the fact that I have done so much thinking about silence this year, and that it even got a blog post all of its own!

I was wondering which poem to include today, and the perfect poem for this time of year has to be this one from Annick Yerem:

‘i am a firm believer in fairy lights’

the way they offer a twinkly hope
for better days, the way they cut
through the fog on winter nights,
illuminated landing strips
sparkling my walks round
the neighbourhood

an assembly of wayward, tiny stars

ages ago, you handed me a small
bundle and on the wrapping paper
you had written: ‘those dark corners don't stand a chance`

i switch them on at night
and every time i remember how
good it felt to know

that every once in a while
someone will see all your darkness
and help you light it up.

FROM COUCH TO CHRISTMAS LIGHTS IN LESS THAN THIRTY SECONDS

This morning the air is misted by rain and brings the scent of damp, aging leaves. The night holds tight to sunrise slowing the day’s beginning.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a plate of heart-shaped cookies. I wholeheartedly agree and look at that plate!

This week I did some recipe testing and these biscuits were the result. I had a very clean kitchen floor before the baking because I had moved everything in the kitchen for a good mopping and just as I had finished, and mopped myself out of the room I tripped over the bucket. The floor got a very thorough second clean whilst I cleaned up the lake I had created.

I am a very neat and tidy baker when I have weighed the ingredients in advance and set up the kitchen. Unfortunately the same does not apply when I leap off the settee suddenly fancying biscuits, realising we have none in the house and remembering that I have just looked up a recipe. A little flour here, a few blobs of dough there and a third of a packet of semolina almost everywhere! I attended to this with some attentive spot cleaning because I didn’t want to get the mopping bucket out again so soon.

The biscuits weren’t particularly even in size. Speed seemed to be my focus so the dough was rolled and cut and rolled and cut without much attention to the gradient. I will refine my process over future baking batches because they are delicious. But as a test batch I would say they are mighty fine. I am grateful to my sister for inspiring me, Mary Berry for the recipe, and Maria for rubber stamping the recipe and the results. At last I have a use for the cookie cutters. We seem to have a wide variety of shapes and sizes so I can definitely enjoy experimenting. I wonder how often these biscuits will turn up in different shapes and flavours over the coming year.

The title for this blog, ‘From Couch to Christmas Lights in Less than Thirty Seconds’, comes from the second time this week I leapt off the settee. I was listening to the Eat The Storms podcast when I heard the sound I absolutely love at this time of year – Santa’s Sleigh. Luckily, we had put our decorations up so the Christmas lights I like to wear for such occasions were easily accessible on the bookshelf. This meant I could put them on like a cowl, find some fifty pence pieces, and get to the door before Santa appeared. I often think my hearing is a bit dull, but it is certainly tuned in to the sound of the sleigh approaching. Having a wave from Santa as he rides down our road is a wonderful part of Christmas for me. And this year it went really well with the fact that it happened in the evening of the day we had spent time singing at the Christmas market in the precinct.

As a result of singing as part of the choir I have been spurred on to spruce up my Christmas playlist this year. We have been singing ‘O Holy Night’ and I don’t think I have ever paid the song much attention before. Working as a head teacher in a primary school for many years saw me all sung out by the time the actual holiday period arrived, and a lot of the songs that echoed in my head were from nativity plays and other children’s events. It feels refreshing to be experiencing the festivities as a performer and with a different set of songs. There is also that wonderful feeling of nostalgia when singing carols such as ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and thinking that the last time I sung it with such reverence was as a child. I see the words in my head in exactly the same way I did back then, and the same images for each verse are still there. When I consider the origin of these images I think they might be based on the scenes on advent calendars I had when I was young. How lovely it is that they are etched there.

Receiving an, “Ooh get you!” this week from the person I sing next to during rehearsals made me smile. It turns out I finally learned how to breathe well enough to maintain one of the long notes. Here’s to the joy of practicing, and the joy of keeping going.

‘River’ by Joni Mitchell remains the second song on my seasonal playlist and I wonder whether the images I see in my head when listening to it sent out their ripples when I wrote the poem ‘Skating’. I wrote it whilst listening to an episode of Stress Test, and I remember seeing a vivid wintry scene in my head as if it were a key moment in a film. I wanted to capture and set down the feelings of the scene. 

Skating

I watch her
skating straight out across the ice

taking a furious ‘here to there’

zig-zagging a line.

No laying down of tight circles,

no figures of eight
dizzying on her frozen pond.

I swear I see thoughts
thrown out above her.
I watch them dropping slowly
through the fir trees.


Sometimes I see them right up against the sky

she can make them touch that blue.

There’s so much she wants

to outrun
leave behind.

One day she will let me skate beside her

take her hands
show her how to spin.

PUT THE BACK OF YOUR HAND ON YOUR FOREHEAD AND WIGGLE YOUR FINGERS

This morning the air is cold and wide. I believe I can smell the woody sap from the myrtle branch that was snapped by the recent heavy snow fall.

The snow saw us choosing to hibernate indoors with only a brief attempt at a snowman. That young person who used to love playing in the snow didn’t resurface in me for this snowfall and my snowman was not a success. On reflection I rushed it and didn’t wrap up as warmly as needed to complete the task effectively. The hot chocolate afterwards was delicious nonetheless!

Alt text says this week’s photo is a group of people posing for a photo. I say it is Kath and I posing with a promo board after seeing Wicked.

The weekend started with a trip to the cinema when we found ourselves with some unexpected free time, and ended with a fast food burger. I felt young again!

There is real joy for me in going to the cinema because being immersed in a film is one of my favourite things to do, and one of the few places where I am solely focused on one thing. And a fast food vegan burger is rare in our world so always a novelty. Restorative time makes my heart sing.

The film was fantastic and if you get to see it then perhaps you too will feel the wonderful empathetic pull during the dance scene. And if you ever see me put the back of my hand on my forehead and wiggle my fingers then maybe you will do the same.

The main feature in the middle of the weekend was the Wool in Garden City yarn show. This means that in yarn show terms 2024 began and ended at Welwyn Garden City. It felt good to be back there and to see familiar friendly faces. There was time to catch up with chat and laughter and a little nod to the joy of #ElasticBandPhotos. I had also been sent a mission to complete whilst I was there which felt rather splendid. My mission was to pick up a gift from a wonderful friend. Receiving a message to let me know that there would be something at the show for me was super cool and unwrapping it was a joy indeed…A beautiful Christmas decoration chosen with our Dawn Chorus time together in mind. I love decorations and how each one celebrates and frames a particular moment or memory, and I am excited to think about getting the tree out very soon. I know that the hula skirted neon crocodile won’t be in there shaking his pompoms, because he cracked last year, but it still makes me smile to think that I chose him and wrapped him up for Kath some years ago!

Kellie Bright was preparing for a charity event and brought the squares and partially completed crochet blankets along to the show. I don’t have the necessary skills to help with the sewing up, but I loved seeing so many people enjoying being part of this. I did however honour my promise to tell people when I think they are amazing, by letting Kellie know this very thing and giving her a copy of ‘Lovely’ (one my #ElasticBandPhotos)! Kath was able to help by crocheting together sections of the Tom Daley blanket.

Flopping onto the settee with a cup of tea when we got home gave us time to put our feet up and raise our cups to Helen who organised the yarn show. It was good to be part of something with such a wonderful atmosphere, and tired and happy is a good way to go to bed!

I will leave you today with a poem that seems to go with some of the temperatures we’ve been having…

November Cold

November cold

is bone cold,

chalked moon cold.

November cold is fragile echoes

for the poet who does not like petrichor.

November cold says,

winter’s coming,

clouds your breath.

November cold has the indistinguishable

scent of trees riding on the air.

November cold

is rain cold,

faintly herbed.

November cold says,

the poet who does not like

rain on dry ground is a fruit fly.

November cold

is metal cold

spiked cold.

I hope your week contains connection and energy and empathy.

A HANDSHAKE FOR A CONVERSATION AND THE ICING ON MY STOLLEN

This morning the air is cold and the waxing moon is white against blue. I rather wanted there to be a smell of recent rain in the air even though I am a poet who doesn’t like petrichor, but it is clear and fresh this morning.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a piece of toast on a plate. I say it is indeed that very thing. I also say it is a piece of toast on a plate in which I saw a face whilst I was deciding whether marmite or marmalade would be the appropriate topping one morning. Perhaps a photograph of the stollen from Stollen and Wolle would have made a more appropriate photo for this week’s blog, but I ate that before thinking to capture its image. It was one of the nicest pieces of stollen I have tasted!

Looking back on this week I see there is a linking theme. A first meeting in real life with someone I know, a nearly meeting with someone famous, meeting someone I had never met before, meeting up with a friend who I did my B.Ed with all those moons ago.

Thursday saw me polishing my boots before meeting a fellow coach for the first time in real life. I could have dusted my boots off and worn them as they were, but it felt important to give them a shine for the outing. I could smell the polish all the way to Chester! These boots were my ‘going out of the house to work’ boots which means I have not worn them for fifteen months. (I have been out of the house, and I have worked, but the boots haven’t been part of either of those things!) It felt good to wear them again, and they walked me well. There’s a real expansion of conversation that can come when you meet someone in real life that you have only met before via a computer screen. It felt refreshing and shiny. And I think it’s good for boots and people to shine. 

I wondered as I travelled home whether there was an analogy in there for coaching. I think that just like the polishing of good boots, if you find yourself robust and reliable, or indeed in need of some gentle buffing then sharing a coaching room can add that extra shine. I might need to work on that analogy a bit, but perhaps there’s something!

This week I was reflecting on it being a good thing to tell people when you really like something they do. And then I experienced this for myself when I received a testimonial from someone I have recently had the privilege of sharing thinking time with. I enjoyed time to revel in the proud glow that came from reading the words. I like words.

I also like to think that I am actually pretty good at remembering to let people know when they have brought me joy or when I admire something in particular that they do. This week included a moment when I found myself conflicted about offering one such compliment… I was standing in Chester and Ruby Wax walked past. I wanted to go up to her and let her know just how much I have always loved her comedy and thank her for sharing this talent. I have lost count of the amount of times I have laughed at the Ruby Wax Meets series and I never fail to be delighted by the episode where Ruby Wax and Bette Midler go shopping. It occurred to me that it might be intrusive to just go up to her in the street so I hung back, and decided not to. This is probably just as well because I can imagine I might have got over excited and suggested we could have a photo together on the Paddington bench. There’s that inner jaguar vs playful cat at work inside me again! But… if it happened again I would take time to deliver the compliment.

At the weekend, I was delighted to find myself sitting at a table near a man with a camera with the kind of lens that tells you this person loves photography. He was flicking through to see what he had taken photos of and I could sense the passion and pride. I found myself curious about the photos so I seized the moment and asked about his photography. We had a great conversation which completely brightened my morning and before we said goodbye he reached out to shake my hand. That’s me getting the equivalent of a Paul Hollywood handshake from a man called Dennis. And to think there was a version of me not so long ago that would have felt too shy to initiate a conversation.

The icing on my stollen this week was the perfect hug from a friend I haven’t seen since we graduated. I can’t quite put into words just how much this meeting meant to me. Her love of knitting and Kath’s wonderful knitting designs wove magic into the air so that we found ourselves in the same place at an event. Truly wonderful. Here’s to that kind of sparkle and shine.

Today I want to share one of my fruit flies poems because I have been remembering it fondly this week:

We Studied Fruit Flies in our Lunch Break

Held our lenses with care.

I remember the focus on looking,

how we blinked the spider legs

of our eyelashes clear out of sight.

Exactly what we charted escapes me,

like the day I dropped the lid

to expose the wrong chamber

and saw a thinning puff of flies

head for the ceiling.

Something to do with patterns of shading,

or dots like gently painted on freckles,

or simply the curve of the abdomen.

Now I find out

males vibrate those thin wings

to play a courtship song

and that people have been

watching their lives closely for years.

I hope there are conversations, observations and aromas in your week that bring extra joy your way.

POETRY AND PROSE

This morning the air carries the essence of brown leaves. They are there mixed in with the wet yellow on the ground while a few are still to fall from their twigs. Some are holding their shape, and others are beginning to fold and soften. As the sun rises it brings orange and purple.

Alt text says this week’s photo is: a book on a colourful blanket. I say it is My Humming Bird Father by Pascale Petit on a hexiflat blanket made from left over wool from a vast array of projects and designs by my lovely wife. I loved spreading out the reading of this book over a week and finding different places in which to read it. I saved the final hour of reading for a sunny courtyard in Bakewell while Kath was teaching a knitting workshop at a yarn festival. It felt good to finish reading in the open air. It never ceases to amaze me that I see a film of the book in my head as I read, and I loved watching this one unfold. There is a poetry to the prose of the storytelling here and the images are strong as the story reveals itself.

This week I am particularly glad for social media and the community of people I have connected with there. Without it I might have missed the fact that Todmorden Literature Festival was bringing together Pascale Petit, Joelle Taylor and Andrew McMillan. All three are poets whose work I love, and all three have recently published prose books. I swear when I checked the location on my phone before booking tickets it was an hour away, but it was actually an hour and a half. Not sure what happened there, but it was a lovely drive to a wonderful town for the perfect immersion in time and space for thinking, listening and laughter. It felt like being part of a conversation even though we were listening in.

Such very different books and so much to whet the appetite for reading. I love listening to the process writers use to get the words set down, and it resonated with me when the authors talked about the difference between editing and redrafting novels compared to poetry. One of the things I love about poetry is that to redraft it you can read it from beginning to end in a short space of time and sense how it works as a whole. The contrast of doing this when working on a novel had us laughing at the very thought. It also reminded us that writing each day might be particularly useful for a novel to ensure the characters were not left hanging and the plot went in the direction the author wanted.

I am not sure I am really ready for writing a novel, but on the drive home I remembered that I once wrote a 50000 word piece to see if I could. I am tempted now to dig that out and reread it to see if it holds potential. I get the feeling I will need to glance at it through squinted eyes because I think I’m recalling that it’s a piece of writing that seemed like a good idea at the time! Worth a look though…

Without social media I also might not have been at ‘Crafty Crows’ this week enjoying the work of two headliners and remembering what it is I need to do to perfect the sharing of my work out loud. I struggle sometimes to lift the words from the page and recognise that I need to ensure that my drafting process is as tight as possible. Beginning to explain this out loud helped my thinking when I heard myself say that sometimes because I like the essence of a poem when it first emerges into a finished form of some kind I then consider it to be fully baked. Building in extra time for reading out loud will definitely help with this. I am a page poet that wants to share my work, and having just said that it is easier to contemplate redrafting a poem compared to a novel I think I have found exactly where my focus needs to be.

Remembrance Day brings to mind the roles played by family members who are no longer with us and today I share a poem that frames a moment in time. Before writing the poem I listened to the retelling of this  as set down by my Great Uncle for the Imperial War Museum. I also remember my Grandad recounting it to me and my brother when we were young. It had a pathos then that I couldn’t put into words, and I remember how this felt odd and disconcerting to me. When sharing this for the Places of Poetry project in 2019 feedback included: “I particularly like this piece, pinned to the coastal village of Reculver, Kent, which juxtaposes the everyday labours of fishermen with the brutal, dehumanizing reality of death at sea.” That I think sums it up effectively.

TRAWLING ON A DAY’S LEAVE, 1943

Too waterlogged to haul over the side

even for the strong arms

of you and your father.

You roped him to the boat,

tied him on the stern for towing behind.

He couldn’t be left to float;

he needed to come out trawling,

the dead man.

You took him with you to catch the tide.

For the living, for the food.

As the boat picked up speed

you couldn’t help but watch the almost enthusiastic

movement of his legs as he rode the waves

the three long miles to Reculver.

Back in town, the pineapples you brought from The Azores

were lined up in shop windows for all to see

while you delivered your German airman,

a line of bullets across his back,

to the coastguard station.

OH MY GOURD

This morning the sky holds the grey fizzle of spent firework stars. There is a stillness to the day and it carries an artificial smell that I cannot quite place.

Alt Text describes this week’s photo as a plate of candy on a blanket. I say it is: ‘Pumpkin plate with ceramic leaf and ghost, and pretend gourd celebrating the orange sweets from the trick or treat selection.’ 

A fox, fur the colour of honeycomb in my headlights, ran across the road in front of me as we drove home from Evesham on Saturday. It just made it, and I found myself hoping it would be able to reflect on its timing when crossing busy country roads as darkness settles in. If it looks for slightly bigger gaps I think it would do itself well. Thank goodness for good brakes and eyes that notice the flash of something moving from verge to verge.

The three hour drive also featured a range of fireworks which felt like such a lovely way to see them. Quick glances towards their brief extravaganzas of sparkle. This week I almost said no to going to the local fireworks display, and I am so grateful to Kath for reminding me that it is one of our traditions. I think this is the first time it hasn’t been organised to take place on November 5th and perhaps that felt slightly out of kilter to me, but that is definitely no reason to ditch a tradition. There’s something settling about honouring seasonal moments that gives good grounding. And part of the tradition is chips for tea which always delights me.

Perhaps I felt slightly behind with things because I forgot to make pumpkin soup at Hallowe’en. That and the fact that no one knocked for trick or treat this year. I was late buying the sweets, but took a special walk out to get some before dusk. I put all the orange ones aside as a special treat for me only to find I had the full selection to choose from anyway!

Thank goodness for the reliable tradition of the Eat The Storms Hallowe’en Special. It’s always good to settle down for the Storms podcast, and a special episode is special indeed. This one had a lovely mix of poetry and prose and gave the perfect opportunity to sit still and listen. It is good to be still from time to time. I shared Rapunzel and Clambake this time as they seemed to fit the Hallowe’en theme. It always makes me chuckle that I wonder what I will sound like reading the poems and then like to give myself a congratulatory nod if I read well! The sweets on the plate were a splendid accompaniment to the episode.

Even though I no longer work in education, I still notice half-term. It feels strange to see how it punctuates peoples’ lives from the other side. When I worked in a school it gave me a clear marker of when to start thinking about planning in the Christmas shopping as well as a much needed breather after Autumn Half Term 1.  A definite marker of time which reminds me that it is even more important to me to mark the traditions. So now I will stop changing the lyrics to Mary’s Boy Child to ‘Oh My Gourd’ (see what happens when the choir you’re in is getting ready for the Christmas market?) and instead catch up with myself, make that soup, and start that Christmas shopping list.

I’ll leave you today with Beaver Moon which was written after watching the firework display in 2022.

Beaver Moon

We stood under the sky

knowing the moon 

would soon be full,

finding fireworks to match 

those moments that have us breathless.

I told you that beavers are rodents –

the second largest after capybaras.

You said you didn’t even know they were rodents.

I told you that my favourite firework 

is the jellyfish that comes 

after the Roman Candles 

which follow that rapid explosion 

of rocket after rocket.

ONLY TIME

Stones. This morning the slightly warm wind carries the scent of seaside stones. I imagine it blew the smell in overnight when the gusts were strong, but it could be the stones on the paths.

I have a love of glasses and cups, and often match the drinking vessel to my mood or a particular time of day. I realised this week that I might be overthinking things when I felt myself falter when selecting the glass for my first pint of water of the day. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be mostly ‘coach’ or mostly ‘poet’! There was quite a conversation going on in my head about whether I was going to start the day by redrafting some poems, writing a blurb or updating the coaching section of my website! In order to break the inertia I decided it would be best to use my ‘special sister’ tankard and crack on with the day. Alt text describes this week’s photo as a group of glasses with writing on them. To add a tiny extra there are two pint glasses, one with Sue Finch Coach, and one with Sue Finch Poet engraved on them and in the middle is a smaller glass designed by Rob Ryan. At first glance they look as though they might have been photographed in a forest, but I popped them on a chair with a cushion to make the writing more visible. I could have filled them with squash, but I don’t really use them for squash!

Helping Kath at a yarn show on Saturday helped me to get out of my own head this week. Before we set off, I drank water from my ‘There is Only Time’ glass. It holds just enough water to hydrate me before a trip and also carries a good message about time. Words on it include, “There is no such thing as down time/There is only time. I like the design, and I always remember to wash it by hand so that I don’t wash the art and writing off. Having said that, I might once have learned that lesson the hard way.

After I had helped Kath to set up her patterns, I went for a walk and saw a beautiful heron. Two egrets first and then the grey majesty of a wading heron. The sight of a heron is always wonderful to me, but this felt particularly apt because Nigel Kent’s review of ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’ had just been published, and one of the poems he mentioned was ‘I Hate You’ which features a talking heron.

I must admit that I returned to Nigel Kent’s blog to reread the review a couple of times because his words resonated with me, and I rather enjoyed the feeling of being proud. I am hugely grateful to Josephine and Peter from Black Eyes Publishing UK for putting my books into the world. It’s good to work with others and see your dreams become reality. Writing poetry is a pleasure for me and I enjoy setting things down, but there is another lovely tingly pleasure in being read.

The drop-in feature with Nigel that came before his review gave me the opportunity to focus on one particular poem. I chose ‘I Don’t Know’, and my mum cried when she read it because it was about my lovely Nan. I was pleased to know that there were no tears this time just an enjoyment of reading this detailed review. The format of a drop-in one week and then a review a week later really allows the reader of the blog to delve into the books that are featured. An admirable way of keeping things fresh and interesting.

Thank you to all those people who take time to tell me when they like a particular poem. It means a lot. When I need little boost about my writing I pull this quote from Karlos the Unhappy out of my confidence pocket: “Poems of the self, songs of experience, can so easily be jarring – but Sue’s have such a sense of authentic self, likeable and true. This allows the poet’s voice to guide us in to her inner self, because it’s a fine voice, accessible, real, momentarily telescopic of thing and feeling. Great work. When many writers start a poem with ‘I’ in the first line, I slide away a little. But here I feel happy to be beside you because you allow the reader to know you for a whole moment so completely. Bonus points for a Wendy James orgasm moment plus snakebite in black.” These words always makes me smile and smiling shifts the energy very nicely indeed.

Most of my poems get the poetry corner test in the lounge during the drafting period. There is much for me to learn from reading my work out loud and in having feedback along the way. One poem which didn’t land that well in poetry corner and was described by sister as “not even looking like a poem” was published recently and I have recorded it for poem of the month on my YouTube channel. It’s my loganberry poem. I adapted it along the way in line with feedback, and it found its home at Feral. In my opinion it has a great title, and if you like loganberries or prose poems you might just enjoy it…

Here’s the link to YouTube and it has nice yellow subtitles for the poem text this time because I wanted to do something different. Let’s say it reflects the pollen in the poem. WIKIPEDIA SAYS THE LOGANBERRY WAS ACCIDENTALLY CREATED IN 1881 IN SANTA CRUZ, BY THE AMERICAN JUDGE AND HORTICULTURIST JAMES HARVEY LOGAN