My latest poetry publication

Thank you to The Copperfield Review for publishing my poem...

Dancing across canvas

This has spurred me on to spend a bit more time on my poetry. I've visited blogs where people list poetry publishers who are calling for submissions, scoured Twitter and Facebook and spent some considerable time on Google. I now have a list that's so long it's almost unmanageable. It would seem that there are seventy poetry magazines, some online and some in print, who accept submissions. Some offer payments, some offer a free magazine if you get published, others offer nothing other than the kudos. Some have specific submission windows, others accept work 24/7. None of the seventy require payment to read my work. I deleted all of those. 

I have all seventy names and their specific requirements in a spreadsheet - how organised am I!?! I also have a file full of work-in-progress poetry and I'm working my way through the two lists to try and match poems with magazines. A lot of my writing draws on history and there is, as you can see at the top of this post, a market for this. 'Dancing across canvas' is the second of my poems to be accepted by a historical literary journal called The Copperfield Review. You can read it here: Dancing across canvas 

I know, I know, I've posted the link twice. It only seems fair to give the site a double promo!

A Mouse in the House

Several days ago I had settled down to write a post about happiness. I'd been listening to a radio programme that discussed the power of our minds and the way we have the choice to think happy thoughts rather than sad or anxious ones. 

As you can see, that post never materialised. I was thrown into a panic of negativity that began with this blog. Everything I typed showed up in machine code. It was baffling until some blog friends came to my rescue - with special thanks to Joanne Faries of Word Splash who I messaged but forgot about the time difference! (Hope I didn't wake you up, Joanne.) There is a button top left that restored my screen and my sanity - well not quite my sanity because my blog was, as it turned out, the least of my worries.

I settled onto the sofa to start my blog post once more when a mouse ran across the floor and into the corner behind the TV. I've had cats all my life until my lovely little Mabel died last December. I still miss her very much but I never appreciated her mousing skills until now. I managed more by luck than skill to usher the mouse into the kitchen and out through the open door to the back garden. Goodbye mousey!

We searched for signs of mouse habitation and found, under the kitchen sink, mouse droppings, piles of them. We set to removing the bottles of cleaning fluid that we keep there but the mouse had nibbled corners. Liquids of all colour and smell poured out down our clothes, over our shoes and across the kitchen floor. After considerable cleaning, order was restored and that was that - or so we thought.

Yesterday morning I was walking into the kitchen when I almost tripped over a cheeky mouse scuttling across the floor. I grabbed a towel (if you throw a towel over them they stop running) but the mouse was considerably faster than me and it slid behind the fridge/freezer. It took nigh on an hour to move the fridge/freezer out far enough so that I could scoop the mouse up in the towel and release it into the garden. That release was quite a moving moment. I opened my hands and it looked up at me. 'What? You mean I'm free to go?' it seemed to say. 'Yes,' I said. 'Go on. Run.' And it did - they would be quite cute if they weren't vermin. 

We doubted that there would be any other mice in the house but just in case we went out and bought two humane mouse catchers. You put food in them and when the mouse goes in to get the food the lid drops down and you can carry them out and set them free. I baited them and set them up in the kitchen for the evening. At bedtime the lids were still propped open but - I did say they were cheeky - the food was gone.

It looks as if we will be getting another cat. Well, as I said, I've always had cats, always rescue cats, and I do miss having a cat around. I've already contacted some local catteries so watch this space. 

Swimming will never be the same again...

...in fact, nothing, for me, will ever be the same again.

Ok, so I'm being over-dramatic, some may even say hysterical, but there's some truth to be found in my neuroses and I'm going to use swimming as an example. 

On Friday I went swimming for the first time in over a year. I hadn't realised quite how much my body had missed it but here's the thing. There were always rules like no running on the poolside and no taking photographs in the sauna, only now there are major rules. 

• Book ahead for your 45 minute slot
• 
  
  Arrive 'beach ready' (which means wearing bathing costume under clothes and remembering to take underwear for the journey home!)
• Only two people per swimming lane
• No sauna, jacuzzi or steam room
• No showering afterwards

But here's the proof, if proof were needed, that, for me, nothing will ever be the same again. About three years ago I ended up in hospital with pneumonia. I know where I caught it. I'd been swimming and went into the steam room afterwards. A guy in there was sneezing and coughing and he wasn't using the crook of his arm to catch the droplets. I should have covered my face, held my breath and dashed out of there but in typical British fashion I sat with stiff upper lip. I put up with it. I won't ever put up with anything like that again.

In spire of all the rules I did enjoy my swim and it's good to show my face out of the house at last, but I must remember to be careful... you know... hands, face space, all that sort of thing which reminds me of a recent altercation with a Twitter idiot and so:

A warning to a denialist: If you are the person who told me on Twitter that there has not been a pandemic and it was all a government plot then I am afraid you are misguided at best, an idiot at worst. I have a family member who works in an Intensive Care Unit of a large hospital so do not tell me that hospitals have had no extra patients. End of matter. I have heard more than enough of your denialist rantings. 

My Top 5 Pandemic Positives

We surely must be able to glean some good from this last year of death tolls and lockdowns so here are my top five pandemic positives, things that I would like to give thanks for. They are, in no particular order:

1.  Not having to scrape the frost off the car or even get dressed properly to attend a meeting ...thanks to zoom.

2.   Not always ending up in the slowest queue at the supermarket ...thanks to Ocado (and all the other online food suppliers).

3.  Not having to hold tightly to my bag for fear of pickpockets in a crowded area ...thanks to all the 2 metre signs and one way notices.

4.  Not having to handle cash - maybe never having to handle cash again ...thanks to contactless swiping (I know this was around before the pandemic - as was zoom and Ocado - but contactless payments are more generally accepted now even for small transactions.)

Last but most definitely not least:

5.  Not having to receive uninvited hugs plus kisses on both cheeks from men I barely know ...thanks to social distancing (and if that makes me sound like a miserable so-and-so I'm sorry but it's how I feel).

Have I missed anything? 

Are there pandemic positives that you would like to give thanks for? If so then do please share...

My contribution to World Poetry Day

March 21 is World Poetry Day.
I do hope you’ve all taken time
to ensure that your writing and clever word play
is exploding with rhythm and rhyme.

Record your to-do list in long ballad form,
leave the milkman a note in Haiku.
Your limerick emails will go down a storm.
Why not tweet out a tanka or two.

I’m planning to talk in rhyme all of today
chatting sonnets and ballads and more.
I will rap and give rhythm to all that I say
using couplets and triplets galore…

…except Mr A has asked me to please stop as it’s a tad annoying!

Looking forward - fire pits and all

There's nothing like seeing your name in print to encourage a return to the keyboard. I had been suffering from lockdown lethargy but when The Pomegranate London magazine landed on my mat last week I was proud, excited and enthused. It's a lovely magazine, quality print, illustrations, varied reading material and of course it includes my poem, The Circus Barker. Not bad for £5. As a result of this renewed enthusiasm I've submitted four poems this week and have several more just about good to go.

That doesn't mean I've not had time for other activities (with apologies for the double negative!) In the UK from March 29th we should, as long as the virus doesn't re-spike, be allowed to invite friends into our gardens for socially distanced afternoon tea - or indeed morning coffee. Leicester in April can be bitter but I'm desperate for social interaction so today I ordered a fire pit for the patio. 

Initially I thought it sounded like something from a Roman arena with battling lions and slaves but internet images have put my mind at rest. I might also order a chimnea - those pot-bellied affairs with a little chimney. I need to see how effective the fire pit is first. 

I must say, I am normally a careful and conservative shopper, taking days if not weeks to decide whether or not to buy new items but with the sniff of lockdown-relaxations I am afraid I have become totally reckless.

The rest of the day was spent helping Mr A with the rubbing down and painting of the patio table and chairs so that they're ready for the onslaught of visitors. All I have to do now is to find people who would like to visit!

How to keep a gratitude journal...

...or should that be 'how not to'?

A few weeks ago Daughter gave me a gift of a pink journal. It has a soft, leathery cover and is compulsively tactile. She told me it was for recording daily gratitudes. She said that this method of dealing with negative thoughts has now replaced the old 'dumping of baggage' journal, explaining that writing negatives down every night was reinforcing them in your mind. Writing gratitudes down every night will reinforce the positive. 

Reinforcing positives certainly makes sense but it took me a few weeks to get the hang of it. For a start I began by picking out events that had previously been a negative in my life but had now improved and so I could record my gratitude, for example the Covid rate going down to below 100 per 100,000 in our area. Daughter told me that this was not the idea at all. It was to find pleasing, gratifying moments. She saw the blank look on my face - I'm afraid I am something of a 'glass half empty' person - and so she gave me examples. 

    "Look Mum, how about writing it down next time you see that woodpecker at the bird feeder and the way you told me how he sends showers of seed all over the place for the smaller birds to clean up... or... or you could write about that daffodil bud in the garden, look, the way its yellow petals are just beginning to unfold. That's positive. That's gratitude."

I may have remembered the conversation slightly wrongly. Daughter will probably read this, roll her eyes and say that I've still not quite grasped how to keep a gratitude journal but I think I'm getting there. 

I saw the woodpecker again today and as for the daffodils, they're looking lovely and I had to smile at the pretty pink hellebore photobombing my daffodil shot...

Have a good week.