Singing as the Darkness Lifts

NO KISS ME QUICK HAT     Listening Link This morning the air is cold and brings the scent of bark. The birds are singing to welcome in the day, and one short daffodil holds its trumpet proudly aloft on the front lawn.   Alt text says this week’s photo is two women smiling for a selfie and indeed it is. It is Kath and I in a corridor in a hotel in Blackpool the night before a yarn show.   I have decided that Blackpool will be one of those places that is ‘snapshots in time’ for me, and this week I have added a cabaret singer in a hotel to my ‘album’. Staying away for Kath’s work saw us in a hotel in Blackpool for a couple of nights and on Friday night we wandered down for the onsite entertainment. We had not planned to do this and had no knowledge of anything other than there was going to be something happening. When we got there, we got the treat of a person singing a wonderful range of familiar and well-loved songs. It was great to be in the audi...

  UNDER A BLANKET     Listening Link This morning the air is simply cold. I am unable to detect anything other than cold and fresh. The fresh feels revitalising.   Alt text says this week’s photo is a person with a scarf behind her face. I say are you sure you want me to try to decipher that description. I also say it is me sitting on my chair with the blanket I have been spending a lot of time under lately. The blanket is a hexi-flat blanket made by my lovely wife from leftover yarn from a range of different projects. It holds the colours and memories of socks and blankets and shawls and jumpers. And this week it has helped me to be cosy and weighted during a week that featured a persistent sore throat and general feelings of yuckiness.   Progress measures this week have included three distinct stages of biscuit thoughts: 1.     Actively disliking the thought of a biscuit. 2.     Not wanting a biscuit,...

    Something In Nothing Zoe Brooks   Perhaps the fairy tales you were told at bedtime ended with and they all lived happily ever after . Stories in which the perils were overcome, and the moral was outlined clearly at the end.   When Zoe Brooks addresses the reader in her poetry collection Something In Nothing, she is quick to warn us that here things do not end neatly and cleanly. As the answers tell us in Happy Ever After – A Catechism we know not to “rely on breadcrumbs” and “when midnight strikes to hurry home”, but true to the original versions of fairy tales Brooks shows us the darker side, where “when a shoe does not fit cut off your toe”.   The characters chosen for this book weave in and out of the pages as we peer through different lenses. Bluebeard’s Garden has us watching Bluebeard’s new wife carrying out tasks in the garden and sighing because “Nothing lives long in Bluebeard’s garden”. In Cathedral we too feel the chill a...

    SNOW MOON AND GRATITUDE   PodBean Link for those who like to listen   This morning the air carries the smell of grass, and a thread of geese sound in the sky.   Alt text says this week’s photo is a heart shaped object on the ground. I say it is ‘Lovely’, a photograph I took of a discarded elastic band found in the gutter near the end of my road in February 2022.   February this year started with a full moon, and it felt good to turn the calendars over to welcome in a new month before taking time to take a stroll under the Snow Moon. Cloud meant I could not see it, but I knew it was up there somewhere and I sent it a gentle howl!   On the last day of January I took a walk before going to the last session of January Writing Hours with Kim Moore and Clare Shaw. It felt good to clear my head in anticipation of the final session and to give a gentle nod to all the hours I had spent in their zoom room with my wr...

HYDRATION, CONVERSATION, AND GOOD COMPANY      Listening Link This morning the birds are singing in the day under a clouded sky. The air is fresh and gently perfumed. I breathe deeply to determine what might be coming from my soap and what is flora on the breeze.   Alt text says this week’s photo is a mug of hot chocolate and a photo of two men. I say it is a photo of a mug of hot chocolate next to a coaster, with a picture of me and Paddington Bear eating marmalade sandwiches on it, along with two carefully balanced biscuits. I also say it is a picture of the kind of comforting drink I have when I am sitting quietly on a cold day.   In the week that began with Brew Monday I found much joy in hydration, good company and conversation. From minty tea in a zoom room, to soup and fizzy orange in a pub, to tea and water in the company of a wonderful friend.   I have thoroughly enjoyed reflecting on where I have taken time for specific refre...

A NEW MOON BEFORE BREW MONDAY   Listening Link  This morning the birds are sending their calls into the cold air and for a moment I sense the scent of doughnuts before the air smells simply cold.   Alt text says this week’s photo is a group of mugs on a shelf. I say it is three cups representing the joy of choosing a cup that suits mood or drink.   The photo of three of my favourite cups came to mind because today can be thought of as Brew Monday . I first saw this particular name in a post from The Samaritans and I rather liked it. It can be considered a counter response to the term Blue Monday , a label once given to the third Monday in January in the Northern Hemisphere. I understand the blue label in relation to the weather being cold, spring seeming distant, new year’s resolutions perhaps being unrealistic and Christmas behind us, and I must say I like the reframing of this to Brew Monday . There’s joy to be had in taking time out for ...

THE MOON POEMS ARE WAXING LYRICAL     PodBean Listening Link This morning a light wind tickles the leaves and drops of rain, held there temporarily, fall. No bird song yet in the faintly herbed air.   Alt Text says this week’s photo is a moon in the sky, and this makes me chuckle because I wondered if this might be the suggestion. I say it is actually a photograph of a balloon flying freely in the sky back in 2014, and when I photographed it I was loving its flight and its brief moonlike quality.   I did a happy poet dance this week in celebration of the publication of My Sister Went to Live on the Moon . It was wonderful to see this poem on the Atrium site and to remember the joy of writing it. It was one of those intense writing experiences where the thoughts come tumbling out like a waterfall into a fast flowing river. The kind that has me eager to see what has been created when I can finally pause the writing. The kind that when that p...

WOLF MOONS Listening Link This morning the crunch-slip under foot of snow fallen on snow, and the intermittent sparkle of pretend stars on the ground. Oddly, the air carries the scent of bananas.   Alt text says this week’s photo is two women smiling for a picture. I say it is me and Kath wrapped up in knitted goods getting our steps in. And I have chosen to put it in black and white because in the colour photo our cheeks and noses are glowing rather red from the cold.   On the first of January this year I did something that was very rare for me in the whole of 2025... I read a book from my ‘to be read’ pile from beginning to end. It felt good to make the conscious decision to slow down and devote time to simply entering the world of a book, and it also felt fitting given that 2026 is The National Year of Reading. I had already decided that as a nod to this year’s celebration of reading I would re-embrace the joy of reading song lyrics whilst liste...