This morning the air has been sung in fresh by the dawn chorus. It carries hints of green and fuchsia.
Alt text suggests that this week’s photo is a person sitting on a lawn with flowers. I say it is a photo of my lovely dad and the flowers we chose to celebrate his life at his funeral.
This is the first new month that has started without my dad being here. I’ve learnt that I want to tell everyone what I learned from him. I’ve learned that one of the best things I can think of to do right now is carry forward the very special parts of him to the best of my ability. I’ve also learned that writing some of this down in a poem felt right, but that reading said poem when we gathered together to say goodbye to him required a large hanky and plenty of time for deep breaths.
I am so glad he came into my life when I was young and built us a family to be proud of. There’s so much that wouldn’t have happened without him. The slideshow that was put together of photos of him had us all looking through our photo albums so that we could bring together our favourites, these small snapshots of time brought back a huge set of memories. They play like the flickering reels of an old film in my head when I am out walking. Light evenings and dawn chorus mornings give me perfect times to walk these thoughts.
I have added the funeral service to all the ways I have been trying to say goodbye and thank you since he died, and I take comfort in the lines from Mary Chapin Carpenter’s ‘Looking for the Thread’:
“… I made a prayer from what you said that no one is ever dead because time and love remember…”
And I think I might be crying at Johnny Cash’s version of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ for quite some time, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Here’s the poem, and I hope it gives you a flavour of my lovely dad…
This morning the air carries the scent of warmed green leaves. It is both comforting and fresh.
Alt text offers no spontaneous suggestions for this week’s photo. I say it is a four-picture montage of my time at Wonderwool Wales. The selfie picture top left makes it look like I have a hair bun which we didn’t notice at the time of taking it and sharing it on Kath’s social media, but we are happy and ready for showtime and I sort of know what that hairstyle might look like for future consideration! Top right shows Ronnie taking the opportunity to have his photograph with the lovely Bridie who delighted me by asking to meet him. She said he wasn’t as big as she had thought he would be from seeing his other photos on social media which made us laugh. The bottom left photo shows me feeling delighted and proud when some visitors who came to say hello to Kath asked for a photo of me at the stand. And the final photo was taken when show ended with giggle time with Liz – a joyful photo of Kath and I as we all celebrated a successful show.
This was the second year of exhibiting at Wonderwool Wales, and it was lovely to arrive and set up the stand in the same spot as last time. The familiarity and routine of this helped me settle in quickly and begin to prepare for the busy weekend ahead. Having my bearings from the outset felt good and meant that I could focus on showcasing all the designs with Kath.
As you may know I sometimes like to take a look back before looking forward when there are particular milestones, so I spent a little time reflecting on last year’s event before heading off this time. Last year I did not leave Hall 3 because it was the biggest show I had been to, and I wanted to keep all my energy and focus on the sorting and selling.
This year I was looking forward to meeting new people as well as catching up with people I know. I wanted to say hello to people I knew before each day began rather than just stay in my space. I also wanted to visit the show sheep like I used to when I was a visitor to the show. In those days I spent quite a bit of time looking at and talking to the sheep because I would have completed my looking at yarn and yarn related things more quickly than Kath. I love the colours, the stories behind the yarn and the other goodies on display, but I don’t spend as long as Kath exploring each stand.
This year Ali, who I chatted to about poetry last time, was there again and I was delighted when she came over to say hello and let me know that she was still enjoying dipping into my poetry book. Other conversations from new people I met included the joy of dawn chorus, the wonderful Dolly Parton, and finding time to treat yourself as kindly as you do others. I love all these things and it was good to converse with so many like-minded people.
The lodge we stayed in was in a wooded area and I was able to practice using my new head torch (perfect for watching the rabbits in the fields) as well as being immersed in the sound of dawn chorus each morning. I have been thinking about dawn chorus a lot lately. The beauty of this moment in each day, the way it becomes so magnificent at this time of year, how wonderful it feels to stand in the start of a new day or a new venture, and how it feels when darkness breaks. In celebration of all of that I will share ‘It is Not About Dawn’ from my first collection Magnifying Glass.
This morning the air brings the distinct smell of cut grass. The birds have turned up their dawn chorus songs these last few days and are welcoming the mornings with a vigour that is admirable.
Alt text tells me this week’s photo is ‘two women taking a selfie in front of a cow’. I say it is my sister and I on a country walk encouraging a cow to be in our photo after we have told it how beautiful we think it is.
I have been reminded about a couple of things on recent walks:
Number one: Being dehydrated is not good for me. I often talk to the creatures I see on my walks, but when I was dehydrated recently I became judgemental and called a squirrel naughty and told a sheep it looked like a badger. My sister recounts school days where one orange squash drink and maybe a metallic sip from the water fountain were her drinks for the day. How much better we are at hydrating now. I know I feel much better when I am properly hydrated, and I am definitely more conversational with the wildlife (and indeed humans) as a result.
Number two: If you want to climb mountains it’s a good idea to practise by walking some hills! I have not included enough inclines in my Snowdon training and it is going to be important to rectify this ahead of September so that I can hold a conversation as I climb and don’t feel completely heavy-legged when things are steep. I had kept my focus on brisk minutes and increasing the length of walk whilst neglecting the uphill part. On reflection I was finding a comfortable sense of achievement in my improved walking fitness on the flat and forgetting to challenge myself.
The Great Orme and Moel Famau give me two good places to practice my hill walking. Pleasingly on a recent adventure with my sister I was able to be pretty good about climbing the wrong hill and then going down it and climbing the right one! My sense of direction is not very well tuned and the fact that I thought I had once climbed The Great Orme by starting at a particular point in Happy Valley had me confidently telling Katie which path we needed to take. It was only when we got to the top and noticed The Orme was on our right and not under our feet that I realised I was wrong. Down we went and off we set on the proper path. I got my steps in that day. And I also enjoyed walking with her up Moel Famau on a sunny day and am glad she said let’s do the steep route because it felt like another good adventure.
On a more sedentary day recently I set off to meet some friends in Costa. It was one I hadn’t been to before so I looked it up the night before and when I got in my car thought I had pressed the right button to take me to it. I thought I sort of knew where it was so when my directions seemed to be taking me the wrong way I pressed the button and stated, drive to Costa and a branch a mile away was suggested which seemed about right. Wrong! It was an express shop in a garage! I realised taking a stop and a breath and a proper look at the map was beneficial so I did just that and worked it out from there. I wouldn’t be without my sat nav, but I think I can also help myself by looking at the maps properly before setting off. I was still on time because I always leave early for things!
There was a lovely moment when I got out of my car and saw someone smiling at me. I momentarily thought I knew them so smiled back before realising they were a stranger to me. We each smiled at one another again and this encouraged me to go and speak to them. I explained that I was feeling lost and they shared that they were looking for a friend and they too weren’t entirely sure they were in the right place. It felt good to have a shared experience – an unexpected mini connection with someone. It’s good to talk.
I have chosen ‘Walking to Moel Arthur’ from my first collection ‘Magnifying Glass’ to read because it frames a moment in time when walking in the hills…
Walking to Moel Arthur
We packed the rucksack
with more than tissues and water
tied our boots, checked the laces.
On the way up
we stopped looking at our watches
let time surround us.
But at lunchtime
I worried that if I sat down
I wouldn’t get up;
where we were going seemed so far.
The sun, diluted and dipping,
threatened to leave our muscles cold.
We did not really speak
as we ate our separate lunches,
mine seemed bland and I didn’t ask about yours.
I only sipped my water
as I studied the path ahead;
narrowing and bending,
hiding its end.
I couldn’t tell if we were halfway to our halfway.
This morning the air brings a whole symphony of floral notes playing on the cool fresh air. It is as if I am smelling it in shades of pinks.
Alt text says this week’s photo is a person holding a cake. I say it is a photo of my lovely mum posing for a photo with her cake to celebrate her birthday. I also say it was an absolute delight to share tea and cake time with her.
The title of today’s blog, or its longer version ‘Spring Forward, Fall Back’, always helps me to remember which way the clocks go when the seasonal change of hour is due. Strange to still need this after all the years of changing the clocks, but it definitely helps me. So many of the regular clocks I look at change themselves these days so it is often a surprise to see those that don’t. I confess I rely on my wife to change the oven clock, but am at least proficient in remembering which button to press in the car to bring up the clock change display! I do like waking up and seeing that my phone tells me the actual time, and that I don’t have to physically watch that hour tick away.
I love the way this change welcomes in spring and I also love ‘gaining the hour back’ in the autumn. In the autumn I like deciding what to use that extra hour for, and realise now that I have often thought of the spring change as a bit of lost sleep! This might be why I decided to change my alarm by half an hour on a couple of occasions this week. Perhaps I was subconsciously banking the hour in advance.
Making sure I positively framed the change of clocks this season I set my alarm for the usual waking up time, resisted the temptation to hit snooze, and got straight into the shower. My mum and I agreed that this was a good way of springing forward into the new day since the change of hour was going to happen whatever we thought of it! (And yes I chuckled at the fact that I still need to have this same approach to getting up on days when the clocks don’t change and that sometimes I still sneak in a snooze or two.)
Imagine my delight too when on clock change day there was time for a bonus couple of hours with wonderful friends to walk along the seafront before sitting on a bench taking in the sea view whilst catching up with each other’s news.
It seems apt to share The Week the Clocks Change. Here’s to finding the joy in spring as it unfolds its new season…
THE WEEK THE CLOCKS CHANGE
Summer beckons us forward with a smile.
A gentle hypnotic sway to her hips
erases last year’s jellyfish memories.
And in stomachs that have slumbered,
somersaults of love begin to turn again.
And a link to a seemingly younger me (perhaps 10 or so clock changes ago) reading this as one of the first poetry videos I made. I love that I taped the poem onto Kath’s chest and read it on location at The Little Orme…
Alt Text says this week’s photo is a group of black plastic caps on a wood surface. I say it is a set of new thingummyjigs to cover the tyre pressure valves. I have decided to use these to replace the mismatched ones I have seen too many times in the last ten days. I was also short of a full set having forgotten they were in my pocket and scattered them in the dark at a service station whilst needing to check my tyre pressures for the 9th time in 10 days! I can recommend Corley services as having a pressure machine that works if you need one. I won’t bore you with a list of the places I have stopped with out of order machines!
This morning the birds are particularly tuneful in their dawn chorus and seem to have sung in the scent of the cow fields. I am reminded of a family holiday when I was very young where eating cereal with the freshest cow’s milk on was a brand new treat. I can picture the cockerel logo with its bright green and red revealed at the bottom of the bowl at the end of the eating, and the distinct yellow tinge to the thicker than usual milk. I remember too missing the birth of a calf because I was bored waiting for it to happen and went to lie on my bed. I saw it licked to standing and finding its first steadiness later on.
I am currently assisting with editing the next Sidhe Press anthology. The theme for this one is Grief and the submissions have come from a wide range of angles. All poems carry the poet’s unique view, but here there is something specifically tender about the words that are set down for us to read. Taking that first read of someone’s writing is a privilege and a joy, and editing always has me eager to see the poems that are sent in for consideration. Having said that there is a need to take things slowly and give each poem its own space in time.
There is a wonderful tingle when certain lines from a poem continue to echo in my head after reading, and I love that feeling of resonance. There are also always poems that are very good in their own right but don’t fit the arc of the anthology as it forms. These have to be let go, but I know they will find their actual home somewhere else. I had heard this from editors before and having experienced it myself I can see more clearly now what they were referring to. Parts have to fit the whole so that the poems weave themselves into the whole journey of the book and make that arc. Some poems talk to each other along the way.
Every time I have had a reading or editing role it helps me to look at my own writing in a slightly different way. This enables me to be more and more willing to cut and rearrange. It also helps me to be able to view a poem as if it is not mine and read it afresh in a different way from when it is forming on the page. That said I will be editing some poems that have flown back to me this week including the ones that tried their luck at the National Poetry Competition, and I look forward to sending them out again to see if they find their homes after a new viewing and the subsequent trim and tidy. This will be a nice distraction from checking my tyre pressures and willing the light not to keep displaying itself on motorway journeys that would feel much nicer without that strange orange symbol.
Here’s a poem I wrote after watching a cow on the way to work one morning:
This morning the air is fresh and carries a tint of laundry detergent.
If alt text was offering a suggestion I think it would say this week’s photo is a picture of two people smiling. It is a selfie photo of Kath and I at the East Anglia Yarn Festival readying for Day 1. This was the first time the day has completely flown by for me. My second year of proper helping at shows so I reckon I am in the swing now and it can be added to the list of things I know how to do. I have come a long way from my initial wondering of ‘how do I actually manage to be there all day and make good conversation as well as know enough about knitting to be fully reliable?’ I learned by doing,and doing again. I recognised and celebrated my progress even when the steps were tiny. I kept going.
My people haven’t all been in the right places this week and when your people aren’t in the right places everything wobbles. Mix that in with a phone that stops connecting to the car for sat nav and a need to travel to unfamiliar places and it’s like trying to stand up on a waterbed to unscrew a light bulb. This week has been a time to think about what it is that steadies the wobble just enough…
It’s all the little things… efficient, friendly service from professionals, forgiving yourself for neglecting the visual check of your tyres, updated playlists, a new phone, three new tyres, remembering to take several deep breaths, keeping calm when you realise it was the settings in the phone not the phone, a compliment in an email, a WhatsApp message of support, hugs in a text, a lift in a car, keeping calm when your tyre pressure light comes on, remembering not to panic when three service stations in a row have dysfunctional tyre pressure machines, your favourite quick grab toastie, someone calling out your tyre pressures at the garage. It’s spending time with your family. And sometimes it’s actual ice-cream and jelly.
I remember my realisation as a child that Mr Jelly was not really Mr Jelly by the end of the book, and then thinking that if writers thought of the titles when they had written the books then perhaps the title wasn’t the right one. I also remember thinking that this thought was interesting in itself, but that the story was all about Mr Jelly and his development. I loved the way the character changed in shape. I loved that this illustration surprised me. I loved how there could be bravery inside even when things were shaky. Maybe this was the beginnings of my learning that emotions aren’t fixed. And now as I scan the titles in my mind I remember that I could taste the sausages when I read Mr Greedy, and I once cut the grass in the back garden with safety scissors which might be a throwback to Mr Neat.
Thinking about Mr Men led me to wonder which character came to mind for other people. I started by asking Tanya, one of the lovely vendors at the wool show, and for her Mr Tickle was first to mind because she could have benefited from his arms to reach the yarn from the van when unloading! The second person I asked also named Mr Tickle, with a cautionary warning around consent. Someone found my question rather random which I totally get since we had only recently met! I myself do like a random question for its “Oooh factor” but recognise it can also generate an “Oh”! There was also a vote for Little Miss Chatterbox and a mention of Mr Bump!
This week I am sharing Whitby’s Old Lifeboat because it fits the theme of holding on when feeling scared and because it honours my grandad.
This morning the cat from across the road sings me three hellos while the air brings us gentle elements of spring.
Alt Text says this week’s photo is a shadow of a person on a road. I say this is me out on the country lane walking with my shadow. I liked the length of my shadow on this particular day and wanted to capture the spring sunshine. Whilst walking I had been pondering the way people sometimes look as though they are taking their shadow for a walk and sometimes look as though they are walking with their shadow. I was also thinking how I picture the metaphorical road I walk differently on different days. Can you begin to imagine the number of tangents this took my thoughts off into?
I don’t always remember to take many photos and was incredibly grateful to the person I sat next to at the recent Mary Chapin Carpenter concert for sending me some photos they had taken. I don’t think I will forget the experience of being at the concert, but it is very special to have some visual reminders of the event.
I didn’t dress as Noddy or Thing 3 for World Book Day this year, but I did see the Gruffalo in the forest whilst out walking with a friend. The walk also had essence of searching for a Heffalump in the Hundred Acre Wood when we suddenly realised that we were in fact striding out to walk round the same route again. I don’t have a very good sense of direction, but can read a Pokémon Go map and am reasonably adept at following posts with arrows on them. I also find large landmarks incredibly helpful, and luckily there was a lake on the walk which helped us orientate ourselves. Walking and talking in the fresh air saw a couple of hours fly past which reminded me of a long chat I recently had over a cup of coffee. It seemed that all of a sudden the chairs were being put up ready for floor mopping, and we had sat down at lunch time! I love these kinds of conversations where time comes as a surprise, and I love the fact that there are now days in my week where these things can glide into being.
It was an absolute delight to find out that two of my poems had been shared at a World Book Day event. I felt a wonderful glow of pride when I was told. I always wondered whether something like this would happen and now I know it actually has. I tip my metaphorical hat to the sharers of words and to the fact that His Gun was performed from memory. I don’t have the skill to do that with my work, and can only recite very, very short poems that rhyme!
I will share His Gun with you because it comes from a time when I did dress up for World Book Day, and I am grateful for all the experiences this gave me during my time working in a variety of different schools. It is also one of the poems from my ‘tape the poems to Kath so I can see the words while she records me’ phase of YouTube which makes me smile.
HIS GUN
for the schoolboy who entered my office without really announcing himself
This morning the herring gulls are laughing and the air smells cleansed. I stand still in the moment and feel gratitude for last night’s Mary Chapin Carpenter concert and the clear starlit sky that ended the day.
Alt text says this week’s photo is a person smiling with a scarf around their neck. I say it is me modelling The Imperial Cowl by Kath Andrews Designs and enjoying having my photo taken.
Whilst wondering which poem I would like to record for ‘Poem of the Month’ for my YouTube channel I found myself thinking about what Alan Parry wrote about one of my poems about grief.In his review of Welcome to the Museum of a Life he says: “I Don’t Know explores the uncertainty of loss with a quiet, devastating honesty: “I don’t know if biting one by one / through a dozen budded tulips would help.” Finch does not attempt to impose order on grief; instead, she lets it unfold organically, offering moments of both revelation and ambiguity.” I was drawn back to this poem and decided that it was the one I wanted to set down this time.
This led to me leaving a note on my desk to remind myself that I had chosen which poem to record. When I saw it the next morning and it said, “Poem of the Month: I Don’t Know”, I chuckled because very often it is actually the case that I don’t know until the last minute which one I will record and sometimes I can go to bed knowing and wake up no longer remembering!
I do know that the regular habit of recording my work has been a good way to develop my confidence with sharing my words as well as being able to share the poems as they sound in my head. When I read them silently to myself I see and hear the words as I read as if they are transported from the page – they scroll like a script. There was a lovely moment of revelation when I reached the end of this particular reading this month as I heard myself realise my nan is always with me. There was a wonderful sparkle within me at the whole resonance of that.
I have always thought of it as a quiet, contemplative poem, and I was surprised and pleased when both Julie Stevens and Susan Richardson engaged with it shortly after the book was released. I love seeing which poems from a collection others enjoy reading.
I am also grateful to Josephine Lay of Black Eyes Publishing for working with me on the editing of this poem to get it ready for publication. This led to the altering of some of the don’ts to can’ts, and I loved feeling what that did for the poem. It was good to pay attention together to which lines would change in their power by taking on this different starting word. It definitely made a positive impact and I know I wouldn’t have seen that change if we hadn’t explored it together. I love the duality of the meaning for ‘I can’t’… where one human can’t know the exact feelings of another and also the essence of, ‘please don’t tell me, I fear it will be too painful’.
During my coaching training we thought about the power of just getting going with things when you have an idea or a goal. I have seen this come to fruition in my recording of poems, and can clearly see the journey I have taken. I am glad I didn’t wait until I was ready! I love the fact that since my change of career I have also leant into this and this has enabled me to be willing to model Kath’s knitwear – after all, there’s always a delete button and actually I don’t mind looking at myself now. I also cracked on, and started a podcast so that I could see how it evolved. It has been so good to move away from the nerves that tickled at my very edges when I started!
I get the feeling writing some more poems is going to be a priority pretty soon because I don’t want to be in the position of not having many to choose from when it comes to poem of the month! Time to open the writing journal and set a seven minute timer…
Here’s to finding out which steps you want to take, taking the first one and the next. And then the next.
I will leave you today with my recording of poem of the month: ‘I Don’t Know’.
This morning the rain brings a gentle dampness, and the air holds the scent of sap and twigs.
Alt text says this week’s photo is two women taking a selfie. I say it is me and my sister taking a selfie having learned that it is best if we both sit down. When we stand side by side for photos she looks far taller than me and the photos seem a little out of balance. She says I have shrunk. She couldn’t see me at the railway station when she arrived for her visit, and I found myself standing on tip toes and waving a big double handed wave, so perhaps I might just have to measure myself to find out if I have indeed shrunk a little!
We first met up to watch the snooker a year ago, and before this I had never watched it live. We saw Gary Wilson’s 147 break, and laughed at my sister’s impression of me telling her I was suffering from shin splints from walking round The Orme. This year I know even more about snooker and enjoyed watching Stephen Maguire play against Ali Carter. I also know it is wise to pack my walking shoes when it comes to going for a walk with my sister.
I love the way our walking contrasts with the sitting in silence to watch the snooker semi-final. A perfect balance. This year Katie set me a new challenge of walking round The Orme before breakfast and up Moel Famau afterwards. There was a moment when we sat down to eat when she was doubting my will for the second part of our excursion, but I refuelled and was good to go. It was important to me to complete the two walks on the same day as part of my ‘Snowdon training’! I have been walking regularly and feeling an improvement in my ability, so it was definitely time to test my stamina. I had not completed a walk of this length (or indeed anywhere near this length) in one day for many, many moons, and having remembered how much my legs ached after my last mountain climb I needed to find out how I was doing. No shin splints and mission accomplished with a proud sense of achievement! That’s good progress for me compared to a year ago and bodes well for our nighttime Snowdon event. To celebrate I have invested in a new rucksack and dubbined my walking boots. I now need to keep up the momentum and ensure I focus on ascending some hills as well as walking regularly.
The snooker clashed with the Winter Wool Festival in Blackpool so Kath was there while my sister and I shared a Valentine’s Dinner of our very own. I made red pepper hearts to put on top of our heart-shaped pasta and it felt good to cook a special meal to celebrate the weekend. I was introduced to new songs along the way and am now determined to be better at keeping up with listening to new music. I love the playlists I have created over time, but have rarely added to these and notice that I am missing out. If you hear me singing about going to the ‘Pink Pony Club’ you can thank my sister and if you already like the song and haven’t heard the wonderful version by Edwin (Grandad Sings) here’s the link.
This morning the air carries the scent of young daffodils. I sense the raw potential of their bulbs and taut green leaves, and am reminded of a summer job many years ago. Riding on a farm machine with a conveyor belt that brought us the freshly ploughed bulbs for sorting was a job I had never heard of before doing it. Physical work out in the fresh air all day, and a brown envelope of wages at the end of the week to tuck into a pocket with pride.
Alt text says this week’s photo is a group of heart shaped objects. I say it is the contents of my heart jar, and that some of these hearts are just right for fitting in a pocket and some definitely aren’t. I also say there is a rose quartz heart missing from this collection, but even though it is not here it has been remembered in a poem.
One of my favourite greetings of the week was, “How Do”. I love the fact it is a rare greeting! It was delivered in a warm, friendly tone in response to my cheery “Hello” as I walked past a man sorting out bird feeders in his garden. I even remembered that it is probably a complete response in itself and I need not reply. I smiled and carried it with me as a gentle reverberating echo all the way down the road.
Because I had been feeling a little out of synch with greetings on a walk recently I have also made it my mission to say a little more every now and again when I pass walkers. Mostly to comment on the joy of the sunshine or the pleasure of walking. It puts an extra spring into my step when this is met with a reply that is also longer than a simple greeting. I like the feeling of little connections brightening the day.
In amongst this I had a couple of ‘grey walks’ this week; grey sky, cold air, no one around to exchange pleasantries with. And then this poem popped up in my memories on my phone:
Loneliness
Loneliness is grey.
It tastes like the lamb that I wish had never been killed.
It sounds like crying.
It smells like chips dropped on the floor.
It looks like a storm cloud closing in.
It feels like a rat that is going to bite.
Choosing a feeling, giving it a colour and thinking about what it tastes, sounds, smells, looks and feels like was one of my favourite ‘let’s get writing’ activities when I worked with children. This group poem was written by six year olds, and I love the way their images say something extra about their experience of the feeling. I liked it too when their adults joined in and everyone shared their different emotions. It strikes me that it could also be a ‘let’s think about that feeling’ activity. I know from having written one each time I have introduced it in a writing workshop, that the same exercise results in a different end product each time. Each poem told me something about what was important to set down or celebrate in the moment.
What emotion would you choose to write about today? Choose a feeling, say what colour it is, write a line for each sense. I would love to see your poem.
One of my short conversations took place in the mammogram ‘van’ in the supermarket car park this week. I am always glad that it is so easy for me to have this check carried out – close to home, easy parking. This time I had forgotten the exact procedure, but knew that it was a relatively simple process that didn’t take long. There were changing rooms outside the x-ray room, but the process was to go straight in and take top layers off in the treatment room. I removed my jumper with my thermal vest inside and put it with my bra on the chair as instructed. I told the radiographer that I had forgotten what to do and she reassured me that she would tell me as we went along. This made me remember how clear the instructions had been last time. All was indeed simple and I was impressed with the clarity of instructions especially since I can find it hard to follow instructions about what to do with my body. (I am often the person going the wrong way in dance routines.) Whilst we were exchanging pleasantries at the end I found myself replying whilst trying to get my head to come out the sleeve of my jumper/vest combo. At home I can take my thermal vest off inside my jumper and put it on again without any issues, but in the mammogram van I had to admit defeat, take it all off and try again! One of my values is to find humour in day-to-day things so it did rather tickle me, but I think I might just wear one layer next time.
Today I will share a poem that sets down the fact that it wasn’t just the rose quartz heart that gave me the confidence boost I needed at a writing event. (A version of this poem was first published in Dear Reader.)
Sue Finch 