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

A MARMALADE SANDWICH WITH PADDINGTON

This morning the air has been blown to freshness by the strong winds, and I love alt text’s suggestion for this week’s photo: A person sitting on a bench with a bear and a cookie!

When I heard that a Paddington Bear bench had been installed in Chester I was excited to go and see it. I loved watching the cartoons when I was little and enjoyed the empathy I felt for the little bear as he explored things. Marmalade sandwiches are not really a thing for me – I often eat marmalade on toast, but not in a sandwich. However, it felt a fitting thing to do to make a marmalade sandwich to eat on the bench with Paddington. I took a bite before sitting down so my sandwich matched the shape of his. It was delicious and Kath and I enjoyed sharing it on the way home afterwards. There will be more of these kinds of sandwiches in my days.

Last week’s photo featured three apples on a wooden Ludo board and after I had taken the photo I thought about the way starting a new business feels like playing a game of Ludo. All the work that is needed to get round to those final steps towards ‘home’. And then still needing to roll the right numbers on the dice. The metaphor of this reminds me to enjoy the journey and that feels like just the right message to give myself at the moment. If you find me walking around saying that Life is like a game of Ludo you will know why. Here’s to those moments in life when you roll a six and get another go. For me this week this has included writing a cv for the first time in many years and taking a moment to celebrate my skills and career journey so far. It was motivational for me to see the document take shape which felt particularly good because when I turned on the laptop to start writing, it felt like a bit of a chore!

I now notice that a large number of my photos feature food. I guess this sort of balances the pictures of things flying in the air or lying on the ground like discarded elastic bands. But I think it might also tell me that I enjoy eating things. In my photo trunk the other day I found a whole collection of food photos that I had printed out and this included some very dubious looking quinoa. I think I was capturing the first time I had made it into a meal, but it wasn’t very photogenic! My ‘Eat the Storms’ photos show the sweet treats that accompany each episode, and I love that they are all different. These do seem to be standing the test of time and are much more pleasing to the eye. This week there was delicious chocolate cake to accompany the celebration of my first poetry collection, Magnifying Glass, being in the world for four years, and my beautiful wife Kath being in it for 51! The four biscuits on the top went a bit soggy and there might have been slightly too much buttercream, but it was delicious! Having found flour mites in the cupboard flour I am determined now to use up the new bag I bought before mites make their way into this bag. Perhaps they just hatch in the flour; I can’t really picture the mites marching into our kitchen and all the way up to the cake ingredients. (And now a little Google tells me that there is a risk I didn’t get rid of them all last time we had them and they might have come from eggs laid in the crevices of the cupboard even though I thought my cleaning was very thorough!)

In honour of ‘Magnifying Glass’ I will share the title poem of the collection:

MAGNIFYING GLASS

Making sure his head does not cast a shadow,

my brother orders me quiet.

Watch, he says,

he has been experimenting for days

with the magnifying glass they bought him.

Now he aims the sun’s rays,

narrowing

intensifying

targeting.

His control is powerful.

Between the far away sky

and us on the ground

he is manipulating light, tightening it.

He burns ants,

trapped in dips in the wood,

setting charcoal circles side by side.

He starts then on newspaper;

the heat bites crescents in the edges

like a hot-jawed leafcutter ant.

Smoke rises, lifting its smell

just before orange tongues elongate

and lap.

Amazingly, it kites up, up,

over our fence into the sky.

I stand beside, yet, behind him

staring up into the space that he loves

and I do not understand.

A GROUP OF FRUIT STACKED ON A GAME BOARD

This morning the air surrounds me with the scent of a newly cooled fridge. There is a cleanness there that matches the sparkle of the three stars I can see in the sky.

Alt text says this week’s picture is: a group of fruit stacked on top of a game board. I doff my cap to that. I say it is indeed the Ludo board with three apples in a totem pole arrangement. At the bottom is ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin of the Year’ (My mum bought us the tree and I like to select the best apple of the harvest and celebrate that one first) next is a pretend red apple and on the top is a blue ‘apple for my mum’.

On Saturday I sang in the car park in town. Not just a snippet of a song as I parked the car. Not part of a line while getting a ticket from the machine. Real singing. I sang in a marquee, as part of a choir.

I love the fact that rehearsals have led to this. That weekly repeated actions over time have led to being able to be part of a performance. It has been good to learn the words to songs that I have been enjoying for years as well as learning to sing songs that were brand new to me. I still couldn’t do it without the words, and I definitely need the choir director to make sure I come in on time and stay in time, but I am good enough to perform.

I love it all, but my heart absolutely delights in those parts where the more accomplished singers put in the bits that make the back of my neck tingle. I admire this, and I love being next to it and fully in the presence of it. Coming in again when they have sung their parts has me feeling as though I am using my voice to celebrate their skill, as well as mark the way everyone’s voice adds to the layers.

It was wonderful to have good wishes from friends and family for the event. I wouldn’t have imagined a year ago that I would be performing at the town music festival, and I don’t think they would have thought it either. Standing in the choir is now one of my happy places.

I really enjoyed writing my post about silence and it feels almost complementary to now be writing one which includes singing. Although this could take me off on a tangent about how sometimes I walk to the rhythm of a song that I haven’t heard for years because I can suddenly hear it in my head or that seemingly silent thoughts have a sound of their own!

Words are important to me in all areas of my life. For poems, for coaching, for thinking, for thanking. A poem of mine was highly commended in The Gloucester Poetry Society competition yesterday and I love the feeling of someone liking the way lines have been set down.

Staying with words not being silent… I love the way when people read their poetry I receive the words almost as if I am hearing them and reading them at the same time. At a poetry reading this week I was reminded of this and of how wonderful it is when a poet reads their words and certain lines echo in your head long after they have stopped reading. The reading was a celebration of the launch of Kate Jenkinson’s new book, ‘Unbroken’ and I loved hearing the humanness of her poems as well as wonderful sets from the supporting poets. A full set from Jason Conway introduced me to more of his work which I really appreciated and it was good to hear Suzy Aspell for the first time. Cathy Carson’s sharing of ‘Jammie Dodgers’ had me fondly recalling the first time I heard it and I was, as always, beautifully emotionally awoken by her entire set. It’s good to be immersed in the sharing of words. When a poem resonates with me I feel the glow of awe and wonder and it makes me glad to be human.

There was visual awe this week when we got to see the Northern Lights for the first time ever. I am grateful to my friends on social media for posting their sitings which then led to me propelling myself off the settee to find out what I could see. In fact I thumbed a lift from Kath who was returning in the car at just after nine because I thought we would see something spectacular down the country roads. We saw a glorious segment of moon rising in the sky, but no lights. Luckily I decided I needed to check again from our back doorstep before we went to bed and we were fortunate enough to see the lights there. They were quite muted where we live, but definitely lighting the sky with a wonderful shade of red and a green hue. I haven’t written a poem to go with the moment yet, but I reckon there is one brewing. In the meantime I will leave you with ‘An Apple for My Mum’ from Gallery 4 – A Gallery of Dreams in my collection Welcome to the Museum of a Life…

AN APPLE FOR MY MUM

I need to tell you exactly what colour it was.

Did you ever suck an American boiled sweet –

a blue one –

slip it out of your mouth

hold it to the sun to admire it

before sliding its smoothness back in

and licking the wet sugar coating from

the pads of your thumb and index finger?

It was nearly that blue.

And did you have that gel toothpaste

so bright you squeezed it the full length

of your brush’s bristles

even though you knew the tube

said ‘pea-sized’?

The kind that had you wondering how blue

made teeth white?

It was almost that kind of blue.

And it shone

like the first strokes from a bottle of nail polish

labelled ‘electric blue’.

And there it was

hanging from the branch of a tree

within reach

and no one had picked it.

So, I got it for her, that bluest of apples,

and all the way to her house

excitement held my stomach captive

as I imagined her biting into it

or wanting to put it on display

for the whole world to see.

BE MORE JAGUAR

This morning the air seems to hold the scent of violets. Like last week’s scent, I am unsure where this comes from, but I find myself noting it and enjoying the fact that I have been breathing the Monday morning air and noting its smell for 57 weeks.

Last night brought immersion in words and the company of good poets at a visit to Port Sunlight for the Wirral Poetry Festival. It was good to listen to some poems I had heard or read before and enjoyed as well as many that were new to me. Five poets at two events, time to talk with like-minded people, news of events I might enjoy, and a jar of honey. I loved hearing Martin Figura and Helen Ivory referred to as ‘the king and queen of poetry’. And I loved being there for their superb readings.

Alt text is not offering me a suggestion for this week’s photo montage. I say it is four photos, two of the head of a beautiful black jaguar and two of Jarvis, my sister’s cat. The jaguar is entering a space and looks intent. Jarvis is thoughtful and relaxed in one picture with paws outstretched, and perhaps curious in the other.

The idea for a photo montage came from my most recent coaching session. During exploration of my goal I found myself describing it as being like planting seeds and finding myself in a period of waiting. I described wanting to see shoots and to know that the roots were established. This led to an exploration of patience. I quickly realised that I am actually adept at waiting, that I have learnt not to want the process of growth to be quicker than it can. I also know that pulling things up to find out if there are roots or even giving a little tug is not the best idea! This then brought me to the real metaphor to explore. When to be more jaguar. When to move from playful, curious cat to entering a space with presence. This was exactly what I needed to think about because it wasn’t about the seeds it was about being active on other things while that growth was happening. Just like how my goal last year to read my poetry out loud in a room of people was not really about the reading of the poetry it was about having the confidence to start well and deliver well.

Great coaches coach great coaches and they hold the space with you while you get to where you need to go with your thoughts. They ask great questions that you might not ask yourself. I was lucky to have that time and space with a great coach. I was able to see when being more jaguar would be useful. And my coach encouraged me to consider if and when it could be too much. I don’t think I would have thought about that side of it even if I had reached the analogy on my own.

My thoughts about jaguars reminds me of happy time spent watching Goshi at Chester Zoo and of being inspired by Pascale Petit’s writing and workshops. I have a poem about a jaguar in my first poetry collection ‘Magnifying Glass’ but I will leave that one on the page for now and instead share ‘Barn Owl Tattoo’. This poem was recently published by Frazzled Lit. Like my jaguar poem, it started life in a poetry workshop with Pascale Petit. It’s final drafting was completed in a church whilst listening to a concert rehearsal and I liked crafting the small lines in such a tall space. There is plenty to enjoy in Frazzled Lit and it includes stories as well as poems so I have included the link here.

BARN OWL TATTOO

The deep musk of night was still on her skin

as she shifted her body to morning.

The scent of damp threaded leaves and aging

pine lifted in the air. The shower would help –

sprayed water and soap to begin to

lather the cling of damp forest away.

And if you’ve ever closed your eyes there

to feel only the gentle smooth of washing

you too will be aware of that moment

when you open them again, think you’re ready

to finish now and towel dry.

But tell me you have not stepped out

wanting to be clean skinned, fresh for the day

only to find your whole body tattooed

with the head of a barn owl.

Three on each arm. Two askew on your breasts.

And stamped over and over again on

belly and legs.

Tell me you’ve never turned

to find that print in brown,

all haunting eyes and hollow

between your shoulder blades,

tracking your spine.

One on each calf

strangely purpled by your varicose veins.

CAN YOU HEAR IT IN THE SILENCE?

This morning the air brings the aroma of what I used to call mouldy mops. Mops that had been in a cleaning cupboard somewhere for too long. Stored away when damp and not aired. The grass is sodden and squelchy, and my body is still slightly tired from a weekend away at a yarn festival. Kath and I did Yarndale! My first time in Skipton and I would definitely return. Other stall holders had told me to think carefully about footwear and warmth and they were right. Sturdy shoes and layers were definitely needed. I loved it when my sister messaged to say, “I’m not being funny, but your photos look like you are in a cattle market in one of the pens.”

Alt text nails it with the description of this week’s photo because it is indeed, “Two women smiling for the camera”. You can just about make out some knitted flowers in the background and this was the ‘Yarndale Meadow’ and it was beautiful. I love the photo for capturing us just before we started up again on Sunday after a busy Saturday. And I love having a photographic capturing of what for us was a big weekend.

Before packing the cars and heading off for our weekend adventures I spent some time thinking about silence last week. I have thought a lot about silence as a poet and as a coach. I know for example that work I have done to develop my voice means that I wouldn’t now be able to write my poem Silence. That poem was a moment in time that needed setting down, and my relationship with silence has evolved since then. It is still evolving and that in itself is a joy.

Listening to a conversation on The Coaching Inn Podcast between Claire Pedrick and Oscar Trimboli opened up my thinking even more and began to bring the two sets of thinking together for me. My thoughts started to unfold as I listened in and I found myself transported to standing on the path in the forest at Loggerheads, three o’clock in the morning waiting for the dawn chorus, waiting to hear the first blackbird sing. I found myself visualising silence as a space with complete width and depth. I saw it as a darkness about to be lit up.

That image of silence being a space and width that enables things to emerge got me thinking about the times in a coaching room when something similar happens. Silence as a canvas for thoughts and feelings. When I feel that kind of silence in front of me in a coaching room it gives me a tingle of excitement and curiosity as I wonder what is going to emerge. When I am gifted it, I can feel my thoughts being given a welcome, open space. There’s a real joy when this is created between two people and the very essence of it can be felt. Palpable silence.

I have a poetry workshop that I wrote called “Can You Hear it in the Silence?’ and I can see now that this also relates to my thoughts around the silence of a blank page and the silence between words or lines.

My car mot was due and I chose, as always, to sit in the garage waiting area while this was carried out. I feel like a valued customer there and I will often choose what I might do with the hour or so before I go there so that I treat this as a gift of time for focusing on one thing. This time I wanted to continue reading Pascale Petit’s first novel My Hummingbird Father. I consider this reading time to be a silence, but given that there is a lot of sound associated with the environment of the garage showroom I find this quite intriguing. The words played a film in my mind as I listened to them in my head voice at the same time as successfully tuning out the showroom tv which featured the news and a local radio station which was playing some eighties hits. This felt like immersion, it felt like a silencing of my thoughts that enabled me to be in the pages. It made me think that for me silence has so many facets. When I walk and I get to the quarter that is a country road I can find silence when the rhythm of my walk is settled and steady and I can fade out the sound of my footsteps and breath. Very different from the shiver of silence that comes when there is a solar eclipse.

I think I rather like thinking about silence and I think it was the perfect balance to the weekend where we were surrounded by the sounds of show setting up, happening and closing down again. This included the wonderful echo of sheep’s calls on Saturday morning as they arrived to their pens. Deep, throaty sounds as if to say, “Wow there are a lot of humans in this space today”.

I think I will return to thinking about silence… whether other people consider it rare, how they visualise it and what kind of silences they love. For now I will leave you with two poems that I have set down along the way:

IT IS NOT ABOUT DAWN

It is about that moment

before the dark time breaks,

being present in the silence,

standing still in an exact moment.

It is all about when that first bird sings,

first light,

the fact that there is an order

that layer upon layer

sculpts the day’s beginning.

It is about discovering how long it takes

before the crow starts to echo back

with his rough

cruck, cruck.

SILENCE

Silence stands in the hallway all night

says she doesn’t need to sleep.

In the morning, she is in the chair

waiting.

Sometimes she smiles

and I think she gave me the dream

about meeting Dolly Parton for the soundcheck.

Sometimes she is so aloof

I imagine she sent me the handless mob

lumbering towards me,

bloodied boxing gloves

where fingers should have been.

She has birdsong in her;

sends the call of a bittern

to make me laugh

after she has taken me to the darkest silence.

Once she tapped me on the shoulder

at 3am, handed me the car keys

got in the car with me

and directed me to a forest.

She took me over a stile to the darkened path

where we could not see our feet

and the bumps and gnarls of roots

sat under the mud.

Before my eyes adjusted

she stopped me, stood with me

to hear the last owl and the first blackbird.

Once she wrote me a note

folded it and put my name on it

so that she could watch me open it

and read, I am your shadow.

Her drawings tattooed the page –

a tarnished axe

a coffin

and a holly bush

all its leaves on the ground.

ELEPHANT HAWK MOTH NOT SHOELACE

This morning the air is fresh after the rain. It carries the scent of green leaves. A cockerel, a distance away, crows in the morning while smaller birds sing for the new day in hedgerows nearby.

Alt Text says this week’s photo is a caterpillar on a branch. It is. And I have been going out each day to observe this creature and wish it well. I have even proudly shown the postman. I love the fact that most years I get to see one of these elephant hawk moth caterpillars in the front garden, and this one has been sticking around in the same bush these past few days. This year I learned that they like to feed on fuchsia and I feel glad that I left the largest bush in the garden relatively untamed. I did wonder if I would be able to see it cocoon, but I read that they bury themselves in the soil to do this.

When I was young I loved Autumn for the exciting new term at school and the joy of being one year older and ready to learn different things, I enjoyed the change of colour on the trees and the way fallen leaves piled up. I fell out of love with it for a while as an adult and had to remind myself to see it as a season of its own again and not a period of time that led to Winter. Now I take time to listen to the echo of the passing of time and immerse myself in the essence of Autumn as it unfolds around me. I have been extending my walks when the sun is out to make the most of feeling the heat on my skin, and readying my favourite jumper because I sense the end of t-shirt walks soon.

There was sorbet from Snugbury’s ice-cream farm last week (chocolate truffle and mango) when we went to see the enormous Paddington Bear sculpture and it was lovely to be out in the world, just being, for a portion of the afternoon. I have spent a lot of time lately planning work things rather than doing work things and it was good to just leave all of that behind for a while. I like ice-cream (vegan versions) and we have a scoop and cornets here, but nothing beats eating it out in the world as a real treat. And nothing beats a moment or two in time of remembering to be.

If you want to lean into the season of Autumn with me I offer you two autumnal poems: Conker and They Are Autumn… (Oh and if you are wondering about the title of this blog there’s a great photo of a shoelace that’s not a caterpillar on my website.)

Conker

You slip out smooth;

your emergence perfect gloss.

You are Autumn

seemingly solid as wood.

I pocket you,

roll you between finger and thumb.

Palm you

as my lucky charm.

Yet there is a hint of death in you.

And a tree.

I am holding you still as I walk.

Daring myself to lick my fingers

for the taste of you.

THEY ARE AUTUMN

And they look delicious;

smooth, polished nut-brown on the ground

with their snug little green hats.

And I want to eat some,

but I have forgotten their name

and I am not sure if you can.

I give in to the temptation

to tread on some,

to feel them hold out

until they crack under the weight of me.

All I know is they fell from the tree.

Its leaves are telling me it’s an oak,

and I know so much depends upon it,

but it takes me all day

to remember they are acorns.