Category: topical

spaced out

Whether you think of it as a habit or a hobby, queuing is often seen as quintessentially British. And now, with social distancing a must, long lines of people waiting patiently have become a common sight outside the few essential shops that are still open.

Not only are such shops limiting the number of customers allowed in at one time, they’re also insisting customers shop singly. Which means that partners and housemates hang around the shop entrance alongside security guards, supermarket bouncers and trolley fetchers in disorderly groups that contrast greatly with the orderly, wide-gapped queues.
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fashion update, Easter 2020

Whether or not we have any religious interest, most people in the UK look forward to Easter for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the main one is the chance of a really long weekend – although more and more businesses work on Good Friday, having the weekend wedged between Bank Holidays makes for a four-day break for many, which can’t be bad.

And then, of course, there’s the chocolate. Those Easter eggs that have been so effectively filling the spaces on the supermarket shelves left by recent stock-piling. Personally, I can’t see the point of them – although the bright wrappers are pretty, a decent slab of chocolate is far more cost-effective.
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Easter reflection

I don’t really think of Easter as a time dedicated to reflection. Lent, maybe, with its fasting, abstinence and penitential attitude; that would be an excellent time to contemplate and take stock. But not Easter, with its joyful message of hope and resurrection.

Even so, the photo that I’ve chosen as a prompt today is definitely a reflection. And it’s triggered some reflection of my own.
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the path through the woods

I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, but the local park is really rather lovely. It’s far more natural than the town parks I was brought up to, with their bright formal flowerbeds and low box-edged parterres. Although it’s tiny and it has a local council office in the middle, it still manages to boast a brook, a bluebell wood, a vast range of native, fruit, and ornamental trees, and lots of wild flowers.

Even the redbrick records office is set on the site of a ruin and surrounded by swathes of very apt forget-me-nots.
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in the current circumstances

It’s been a long time since I wrote any poetry. But, despite the lack of inspiration, and the fact that it’s probably the longest “dry” spell I can remember, I don’t think I’d really thought I was suffering from writer’s block, nor was I particularly worried that the muse would never come back. It was just a question of waiting.

In the meantime, I’ve written some prose and a lot of articles and copy for clients and for my business. I’ve been working with some other writers on their books and have just brought out a new book for business professionals who want to become authors.

Still, though, there was no poetry.
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