Sue Finch

HOW DO

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.)

A Rose Quartz Heart

for my pocket

instead of just tissues

to shred nervously

between fingers and thumb.

The smoothness of it

warmed within my touch.

A solid kernel in my palm.

It gave me the confidence

to hold my head high

in an unknown city,

helped me remember

to breathe steadily.

It was a connection to you

across the miles:

I hold you safe in my heart

and you can hold this heart to remind you,

you said.

Day one, my folded tissues remained whole.

I could blow my nose

without inhaling paper dust.

On the second day I found myself

just enjoying knowing it was there

without even touching it.

I let it work by itself.

That night I discovered it was gone.

While folding my clothes

in the hotel room

I reached in my pocket to find it,

but it eluded me.

It wasn’t on the floor

or in the hallway.

It wasn’t where I sat for dinner

and had not been handed in.

The next day I scanned all the edges

and gutters on the route I had taken.

Someone else must have it now.

They must have been amazed

to see it when they looked down.

That beautiful, pink, rose quartz heart.

THIS IS THE LAST DAY FOR CHERRY FONDANT FANCIES

This morning the scent of the air is secondary to the early morning chatter of the birds. I feel as though I am walking beneath their conversations. They sound as though they have definitely been awake longer than me and have much to say this morning. When I pause to take note of what the air actually smells like, I think of my sister who says air smells like air. This morning I think I see what she means. I sense no overriding notes or gentle undertones.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a heart-shaped object with a sign on it. I say it is a heart-shaped card holder which has been dusted ready for the year ahead. Two particular objects always remain – a sign that says, You’re every nice word I can think of, and a wooden postcard. Two gifts from wonderful people.

I sense some new year renewal. My water flosser recently took on a life of its own and each evening after placing it back in its holder it would randomly start up again after I had walked away from the bathroom. I learned to take the spout out of it to prevent the extra spurts of water. I tried recharging it fully before using it. I tried putting it down very gently and reversing out of the bathroom on tiptoe. All to no avail. The night I wrapped it in a towel and put it in the kitchen sink, it still got into my dreams and became a super-sized wasp burrowing through a pvc door to get to me. Its final destination became the tip. I like the small electricals skip there because it is easy to identify what can be slung over the side. I really dislike going when I have a whole heap of random stuff that has to go into a variety of skips, but a simple visit is satisfying. I bid it a fond farewell as I watched it drop because it had served me well.

The clock that was edited out of my iamb recording by creator and curator Mark Anthony Owen, and also appeared in my poem ‘The Clock Ticks Louder Now’ has gone to start a new life with a new owner. We originally rescued it from a charity shop for £3, and it has now returned to attract a new owner. It will enhance someone else’s house because we have decided to home one of Kath’s Mum’s clocks that did not sell at auction. Our new clock is beautiful in a different chunkier way than the red one. It is a clock that does not tock or tick whilst it tells the time. There will be no more removing of the clock from the room each Monday in order to record my podcast. And now I wonder whether the owners before us loved it until they too noticed the volume of its counting of the passing of time. Perhaps it is one of those clocks that will enhance a good number of homes in its lifetime.

If you didn’t know, February 2025 sees iamb celebrating being five years old. That’s twenty waves, 320 poets and almost 1000 poems. It is a wonderful site and it is so good to see its continued growth. A site with clarity and vision that truly celebrates poetry.

In other news, I am eagerly awaiting the photographs that will show me inside my drains. I will be admiring these as the face-to-face report I was given tells me they are good drains, on a good gradient and are working effectively. So even though they are old they are standing the test of time. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide I wanted to see inside my pipes. A house survey for the new neighbours showed them there were some issues on their side so I felt it would be good to check what was happening over here! I remembered being fascinated when issues at school meant I got to look down a wide range of drain covers and saw ladders, huge depth and the slow movement of waste. It was fascinating.

My thinking on my walks has become clearer this past week. There was one walk where I found myself thinking that seizing the moment is great, but that blue skies don’t necessarily mean it won’t rain, so checking the weather forecast adds an extra layer of information that is likely to be valuable. It would have saved me from one very wet sweatshirt.

Choosing poem of the Month for my YouTube channel brought me to THIS IS THE LAST DAY FOR CHERRY FONDANT FANCIES so I will also share that here. Its title comes from a promotional email I once received which tickled me.

THIS IS THE LAST DAY FOR CHERRY FONDANT FANCIES

and I don’t know

if it is the final day this season

or the very last day ever.

I have never eaten one,

but I do know the chocolate,

lemon and strawberry ones

from my childhood

came in neat half-dozens.

To me they looked like the kind of cakes

that Alice would love in her Wonderland.

But no matter how many times I tried them

I could never love them.

Too sweet, too sickly

on too many Sundays.

And yet if there were cherry fondants tomorrow

I think I would take a box just to test

how my tastes are these days.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

This morning the air wraps around me with its cold temperature and brings the smell of raw cake mix. It is the unbaked beginning of a day.

Alt text says this week’s photo is, a red sign with a smiley face on top of a wood roof. I say it is a fence rather than a roof and a frying pan rather than a sign. I saw this on a winter walk and remembering repeating the route on a different day to see it again because it felt cheery and fun.

There seemed to be a lot of thoughts in my head on a particular walk this week. The seeming randomness of them appealed to me, but I also longed for elements of silence as I walked because I seemed to be staying in my head not looking at the surroundings or the view. Perhaps there were no buzzards, no singular robins, no territorial squirrels, but perhaps too I was not in a ‘noticing things outside of me’ frame of mind.

I had the rhythm of 4 in my head as I walked and I wondered why this kind of counting featured. I have noted elements of counting to 60 before which I think are my way of seeing how far I get in approximately one minute and seem to tie in with my Hurry Up Driver when I feel the need to get something completed. I don’t however recall a focus on 4. This led me to wonder why it wasn’t in 8s, I thought of people using 8 as a dancing count so I tried this, but it didn’t feel like it fitted at all. I imagined that I would actually need to dance to make this effective and my walking feet are not for dancing along. It might look funky though. I could picture it, just like I can imagine somersaulting down the aisles in the supermarket, but like my circus skills it’s not a reality.

I had chosen the circular route. I thought about walking this particular route the other way round if I did it again at a similar time because when people came towards me in bright sunshine I was readying to greet a silhouette rather than a person. My greeting seemed to change from person to person on this walk more than usual and I was curious in what it was that generated each response. A ‘morning’ here, a ‘good morning’ there, and sometimes a ‘hiya’ I also wondered why I talk to some dogs and not others.

A twinge in my back had me altering my walking posture to ease it. And then, just as I was picturing myself bending over to relax my muscles, a cartoon speech bubble appeared in my mind, enclosing a line from ‘Beauty and the Beast’. And then somebody bends unexpectedly, it sang.

I wondered what would be different when this walk was a true habit and how my body would feel in a more regularly exercised state. I had already mixed it up today and gone back to the shorter circular route because I didn’t fancy the there and back again I had been doing all week. And now there was an urge to take a drive for a walk somewhere else, to broaden my vision. Followed by a momentary longing for spring when I slipped on a small patch of black ice that had escaped my notice. (Twice I did that this week, in the exact same place!)

The slippery patch marked me being about halfway round, and I used the homeward section of the journey to call to mind the joyful silence of a walk earlier in the week. I was now also beyond the fumes on the main road. This was a good place to take stock and let myself revel in noticing the quiet and noticing that for as far as I could see and hear there was no one else on the road right now. I felt myself tuning in to the way my head was clearing, and pictured the yellow brick road I had brought to mind during a recent coaching session. On that road I was feeling content in the middle of my journey, and here too was a momentary peacefulness on a grey, damp road.

After I had found myself wishing for such things, I did receive a blatant sign of spring. It came in the form of a plump, bright green caterpillar that landed on the back doormat after I had visited the compost bin. I am not sure exactly where it was before it became attached to me in some way, but I returned it to the outdoors world to continue its transformation.

I wish you thoughtful joy, and offer the following poem which I wrote recently for Top Tweet Tuesday…

THIS IS THE DARKEST SEASON

The tilt of the earth’s axis

offers us to Winter.

We cling on

fingers numb.

Remember Spring my love,

hold tight with me.

Look how the snowdrop

umbrellas lime-green down there.

Remember Spring my love,

hold on.

Let me show you sunrise

clementine the sky.

TWELVESES

This morning the air carries the dull scent of newspaper print. This strikes me as a contrast to last night when it was stirred with the magic of wood smoke and incense. The moon, jacketed in clouds, has waned to 58%, and in hedgerows the birds are welcoming one another to the day.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a plate of food with a bowl of fries. I say it is our ‘on the road’ evening meal on a day where late elevenses of tea and cake became twelveses, and lunch a little while later was a shared meal deal. Sometimes in someone else’s town it can be difficult to know where to go to eat and I am grateful to the local person I asked for advice who recommended this place to us.

I have motivated myself to get back into the swing of walking this week, and found joy in noticing the changes in the hedgerows and in the amount of light at different times of day. I have been amused by the sound of a squirrel warning off a dog from the top of a tree, and pleased that the days are increasing in length which widens my choice of when to walk. I thought I had a great video of the squirrel growling out its warning and then leaping from tree to tree until I watched it back and found I had held my phone upwards all that time and then actually pressed record as I walked away. So instead of punchy squirrel I have a five second video of my feet as I attempt to watch back my non-existent video.

My main walking motivation comes from my current mantra of ‘steps I take today are making future steps easier’, and I am enjoying tracking my progress. After a limited number of steps in December I can see that I am now building back up to where I was in November. The graph of brisk minutes, and the distance ring on my phone are useful tools in keeping me going me even though I pretty much do the same country road route each time at the moment! It helps to have the Snowdon goal in mind, but there is something really positive about it becoming habitually good for my mental and physical health beyond this. It is good to feel determined. It is also fun to remember the different times I have climbed the mountain or been up on the train in the past. All very different experiences, and each one special.

I had a dream this week where I was climbing Snowdon with my brother and sister. We were all kitted up, about a fifth of the way up and striding well when they said they wanted to take something back down to the car. I wanted to carry on to the top because I wasn’t quite sure we had let mum know what we were doing and I didn’t want to be late! Here it is in a poetic form because it felt good to set down a vivid dream that quite amused me when I woke up. (It’s got that recurring essence of ‘Hurry Up’ in it too.)

AND ALL I WANTED TO DO

was get up that mountain and down again

tell my mum I was coming back

if she could just take the pies out of the oven

and wait for me.

But I couldn’t get the message to send

and the batteries in my torch were failing.

It’s a bit like a companion poem for Hanging On which features in Gallery 4 – a gallery of dreams, in my second collection ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’…

HANGING ON

Sure of the rope that had me swinging

certain the rungs were wooden

I thought of the grip of past climbers.

All the dirt pushed into the twists

smoothed and darkened

by person after person.

And here I am

three-quarters of the way up

suddenly swaying on unanchored plastic,

with the realisation that the ladder is inflatable.

I cling on;

tell myself height is irrelevant

that I was ascending before.

Say that, if hand over hand

worked a few feet in the air,

there is no reason to doubt it now.

I will the sway to stop

keep listening.

I go faster

desperate to outclimb that gentle

puff of escaping air.

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 6^th 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:

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
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.