Life – Page 3 – Middle Age Fanclub

Poetry Blog: ‘A Day at the Lake’

This is a poem about one of our first family holidays, when there was just the three of us. It’s one of those memories that I think will always stick with me and one that I can summon really easily.

The poem is about a tiny bit of a break we had in the Lake District when my daughter was just a toddler. It covers those protective feelings that you have as a parent. A swan nipped my daughter’s finger when she was giving bread to the ducks and it threatened to spoil the day. Later, when she’d calmed down, we moved round the lake a bit, took our shoes and socks off and had a bit of a paddle, or a plodge as we call it where I’m from.

Anyway, have a read.

A Day at the Lake

Earlier that day a rogue swan had nipped at your finger
after you'd steeled yourself and trusted mum enough
to offer it some bread.
You sobbed into her warm, protective arms,
soothed just a little by her calming words,
while nearby I seethed with rage,
fists clenched, tensed, 
until common sense reminded me that
you can't punch swans.
They belong to the queen, you know.

Later, plodging in the lake on a different shore
and at a suitable distance from your attacker and his cronies,
your little hands gripped mine and told me
that you didn't much like the numbing cold of the water
on your legs and didn't want to feel the spite of pebbles
digging into your bare feet.
But you clung on, held your own, as you always would.

Later still, as we made our way back,
you ran off across a thigh high meadow
that laughed along with you,
your awkward limbs flailing for speed and distance,
enjoying this rare but heady mix of freedom and terror
and a loosening of the reigns for once,
because, swan now a distant memory, surely lightning could not strike twice
in such a beautiful spot as this.

With the determination that you've clung to for life,
you ran and ran, giggling loudly at your sudden independence,
ignoring the cries of 'not too far'
until it was decided that there was too much rope
and I caught you, scooped you up,
pretending to drop you for another thrill,
then hauled you up, onto my shoulders
as some kind of halfway house between wrapping you in cotton wool
and letting you know that sometimes, it's good to test the limits.

I joke about it in the poem, but I was beyond angry at that swan! And I really had to stop myself from behaving terribly. I guess it was another one of those days when you discover the lengths that you’re prepared to go to as a protective father!

Whenever I think about that day, I can clearly picture my daughter running away from us across the meadow as we headed back to the car. White shorts dungarees, a pink t-shirt and a rainbow belt around her dungarees with her hair in pigtails. She’s always been a little headstrong and I think we saw early signs of it that day, although it remains a really happy memory and it was particularly funny at the time. Like any newish parents though, we were over-protective and so, while we laughed we probably both wanted to just take off across the field and catch her, just to make sure that no more harm came to her! And eventually, we did!

I hope you enjoyed the poem.

Another step in the right direction: The Pontefract 10k 2024

Sometimes life’s just not fair. When I first looked at the projected weather forecast, 5 days prior to this race, it told me that it would be relatively cool and that there might even be a chance of light rain. So, in many ways ideal conditions for running. But as the day got closer the forecast changed and Sunday brought temperatures in the 20s and no cloud cover. Just what I would have wanted to avoid!

A year ago, the Pontefract 10k was my first race after having surgery to have a pacemaker fitted. Obviously, it brought its own challenges and in the end I was happy to finish in just under an hour. This year, with a lot more runs under my belt – albeit often taking two steps forward to then take two or three back – I was hopeful of a much better time. And then the hot weather decided to put in an appearance.

Last year’s race was meant to be the final one ever, but then late last year someone told me that Pontefract was on again and following a quick online search I found myself entering once more. I’ve ran this race for the last four years now and absolutely love it. There’s always a friendly, welcoming atmosphere, it’s well organised and despite the undulations of the course (so many hills!), it’s just a really enjoyable run.

I do feel a little bit guilty about doing runs like this. In the grand scheme of things it’s not that long ago that I was collapsing in front of my family and scaring the life out of them, so insisting on running these races might be a bit much. However, they in turn insist on coming with me and I know they’ll spend the time between seeing me start and seeing me finish worrying, but at least they can hopefully see that I’m getting stronger and stronger. However we all feel, I’m very grateful for their love and support and it’s always a boost when I see them near the end. Or hear them before I see them as is often the case!

We arrived early this year as we had to pick up my race number, but despite my fears of an enormous queue, it only took a minute or so to sort out. So we found a sunny spot and stood chatting in the sun for a while, with me doing the occasional bit of half-hearted stretching. All the while, at the back of my mind was the thought of exactly how hot it was going to be out on the run, meaning that my usual pre-race nerves were ramped right up.

Before I knew it though, we were shuffling forward and a local DJ was counting us down. And then, we were off! I gave a quick last wave to my family and began to run and gather my thoughts.

Pontefract starts with a long, long hill and every year I have to concentrate hard to pace myself as otherwise I go too fast and then suffer for it in the middle of the race. Today though, I’m still shaking off a bit of a cold and so as a consequence I’m running fairly steadily and hoping that it’ll pay off towards the end when I can really up my pace. Fingers crossed! Even this early though, my mouth was beyond dry, so while I’d half-heartedly told myself that I could run about 51 minutes, the heat was going to make that a tough ask.

Pontefract is a lovely run. It’s largely rural, so for most of the race you’re in the middle of the countryside and I used that a bit today in order to try and forget about the heat. The one problem with this rural landscape is that the chances to run in the shade are few and far between and so while I was slowly baking I tried to take my mind off things by taking in the views. I was kidding myself if I thought it was really going to work though and it wasn’t overly long before the heat was beginning to take its toll.

However, by around the halfway point I had ran for 25 minutes, meaning that a reasonably quick run was in sight. But oh, those pesky hills! There are a number of steep climbs on the way back towards the finish and so, combined with the heat, the second half of the race began to feel quite brutal quite quickly.

I kept checking my watch for both speed and distance covered and stayed really focused, even though I was slowing down with every climb. And then as we reached a hydration point I completely lost focus and slowed right down while trying to grab a bottle of water and then take a few big gulps without throwing the whole thing down myself. It was only when I threw the bottle to one side that I realised that I was jogging and that I should have tipped the remaining water over my head!

As we got close to the finish two things happened – firstly, I could feel a numbness in my wrist and left hand as my hands swelled up (again) in the heat. Off putting to say the least! Secondly though, I managed to find a last bit of energy in order to speed up significantly for the last mile.

As I turned into the final straight before the finish line I just decided to sprint. I knew that my time wasn’t going to be exactly what I’d been aiming for, but I was still well inside the 55 minutes that I’d told my son to expect for me. My legs were like jelly and I was far too hot, but I managed to pass a couple of people before just about staggering over the line!

It’s always a weird feeling finishing a race. I got a little bit emotional after this one last year as it had been the first race since my pacemaker and I was genuinely a little scared about doing it. At other times I’ll feel fairly fresh and be able to wander through the finish enclosure smiling and looking halfway alive still. Today, I revert to what is more or less type for me; shattered. I know I must look an old vagrant and like I might just fall over, but I don’t much care. I’ve done it and I’ve got a huge grin on my face.

So now it’s back to training for me. I’ll have a look at whether there are any other races to enter in the coming months, but in the meantime life outside of work and family will just be about running and recovering. I’m still fully aware that I’ve had a major scare and with the reasoning being that the fitter I am, the stronger I am, it’s just about more of the same.

I’m still here, I’m still able to run and I remind myself of this kind of thing every day! So however shattered I might feel after something like this, it’s still something to smile about.

Book Review: The Garbage King by Elizabeth Laird

The Garbage King is a story that’s largely aimed at kids, probably from Year 6 upwards. However, a good story is a good story, no matter who it’s aimed at. I stumbled upon it when I was looking for ideas for my reluctant reader son to try and thus, having read only good things about the book, I decided to give it a go myself!

The Garbage King tells the story of street children in Ethiopia and helps us to understand that regardless of their background, children are essentially very vulnerable and that anything can happen to any of them. Such is the case with Dani and Mamo, two kids from opposite ends of the social scale who end up on the street together.

After a harrowing episode in his early life where he’s sold to a rural family as a slave, Dani escapes back to Addis Ababa and begins his life on the streets. So far, life has been brutal and painful for Dani and the streets of Ethiopia’s capital don’t make things any better.

Meanwhile, across town Mamo lives in a lovely house in a quiet, exclusive area. He has the trappings of a wealthy family, but is failing in school and his strict father is not impressed. Fearing his fate when his lack of academic progress is revealed, he decides that there’s only one thing for it; to run away. Before he knows it he too is living on the streets. But while one boy relies on his wits and guile to stay alive, the other is a sitting duck. And then a chance encounter between the two boys changes both of their lives.

The Garbage King is an excellent read. Elizabeth Laird gives the reader a brilliant, and I have to assume authentic view, of life on the streets of Addis Ababa. Certainly, as I was reading I felt like I could easily imagine what it looked like as well as hearing the sounds of the city and even being able to imagine the smell of some of the food being described. It was clearly not the kind of hustle and bustle that would be safe for a child though.

Danger seems to lie at every corner of Laird’s Addis Ababa, making The Garbage King a tense read at times. As a reader, there’s a genuine sense of fear for both of the boys, but especially the naïve Mamo. Luckily though, he has Dani to look out for him, so although life is now distinctly uncomfortable, there’s slightly less immediate danger.

There are twists and turns to The Garbage King, making it a real page turner at times. As poor Mamo lies freezing at night, too terrified to sleep, it made me think of my own son and how frightened I’d be if he happened to find himself in a similar situation. It’s bad enough when he’s out camping!

Laird’s characters are fantastically written. We’re onside with Dani from the very start of the novel. Life is tough for him, but he doesn’t complain. In fact, he shows guts and determination in order to get out of the initial situation that he finds himself in and when he’s finally made safe by the kindness of a stranger, we feel happy for him. He’s bright and likeable and so when fate deals him a losing hand, we’re willing things to get better. And when the various dangers of life on the busy city streets catch up with him, we’re desperate for him to stay safe.

As the novel rolls on the boys find their feet on the streets. As there’s safety in numbers, they fall in with a small gang, but danger and misfortune is still never far away. For now though, life is a lot better than it could have been had they not seen off a few of the predators that lurk in the shadows. Ultimately though, both boys just want life to return to some sort of normality

Will Dani ever see his sister again? Will Mamo be able to return home to his strict father? Well, you’ll have to read and find out!

I give ‘The Garbage King’…

Poetry Blog: Blackbirds

This is a poem I wrote about a scene I watched from my kitchen window while doing the dishes. It was on a recent Spring evening, just as the sun was beginning to dip behind the trees. It had been a sunny day and crucially, I’d just cut the grass earlier that day.

I looked up to see a couple of blackbirds, which on closer inspection I could see were a male and a female. So, channeling my inner Cilla Black (one for older readers there and an old TV matchmaker if you don’t know) I immediately placed them together. Man and wife, if you like. A mam and dad, probably, foraging for food for their newborn Spring chicks. The birds love it when the grass has been cut; I’m not entirely sure why.

The fact that they were at opposite ends of the garden and that their movements were both graceful and jerky, yet obviously on the same wavelength reminded me of dancers in a ballroom. It was something I remembered days later when I had the time to start drafting the poem. Here it is.

Blackbirds

The lights dim and a sultry dance begins
in the garden ballroom,
tentative at first, but gaining pace and rhythm as the minutes pass.
Trees sway and rustle in the evening breeze,
an audience inspired to move,
adding occasional ripples of polite applause
as our pairing settle to a tantalising flirtation, 
at first far apart, yet soon together tripping the light fantastic,
their dark figures striking a pose,
drawing ever closer with each beat of the dying sun
and as the light sighs its last
this dance will reach collapse
and these two distant partners,
now nestled close, will return to the humdrum beat
of their something else, their everyday
a life away from this brief, glamorous scene
until time and hunger dictates they should do it all again.

The idea with the poem was to use an extended metaphor of a ballroom and a pair of dancers to describe what was essentially two blackbirds out getting food. It was the way they moved, almost in tandem, that inspired the idea of the ‘sultry dance’ in the ‘garden ballroom’ and then it became a challenge to add as many dance references as I could so that a poem was formed.

It’s the second time I’ve written about blackbirds as I like to watch them in the garden. They can be quite territorial and there have been several occasions when one has flown way too close, squawking at me as if to warn me off. I don’t think they understand the idea of home ownership! Anyway, maybe somehow they’ll sense that I’m writing about them and make me the honorary president of their fanclub!

I quite like this poem. I’d have liked to spend more time drafting, but given time constraints – I’m a busy boy at the minute – I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. Maybe it’s one I’ll return to in time. I hope you like it too though!

The Apprentice: Here comes the final!

So, after what feels like a lifetime chock full of business tasks fuelled by a combination of bizarre decisions and downright ineptitude, we’re mere hours away from another Apprentice finale. And even though I don’t feel that I’ve been as invested in the candidates as I might have been in previous years, I cannot wait!

This year’s finalists are gym owner Rachel Woolford and pie company boss Phil Turner. And it’s anyone’s guess who’ll win out. Unless you’re Lord Sugar of course, who I reckon won’t just guess who he gives £250,000 to.

Even in the interviews it felt like a bit of a lottery in terms of who would make the final. However, once it emerged that Tre didn’t have a business plan or really, a product and that Paul had chosen the wrong plan and that you or I knew just about as much as he did about scrubs, then the field was kind of narrowed down. In fact, given what happened in this year’s interview episode, I’m considering just turning up myself next year with some ideas scrawled down on a crumpled piece of paper titled, ‘Why I need Lord Sugar’s £250,000′ by Graham aged 53. I reckon I’d still have a bit of a chance of making the final.

Of the two finalists, it’s perhaps inevitable that we might look on Rachel as the favourite. Not only has she shown a fair amount of business acumen, hard work and determination throughout the series, but she’s up against Phil! Phil! The very same Phil who lost all of the first 9 tasks and seemed to be in the boardroom fighting for his life every other week. But then again, he’s in the final for a reason. We have to presume that Lord Sugar and his people have spotted something in him, surely. None of us has much idea what it might be though!

Last week, Phil added to his Apprentice legacy by revealing in the interviews that he hasn’t seen a set of accounts for his business for about a decade. OK, I’m exaggerating there, but the bloke literally sat and told scary Mike Soutar that he hadn’t seen his accounts for a couple of years. I’m no business viking (as no doubt someone must have referred to themselves over the years), but that feels like me not looking at the fuel gauge in my car for a fortnight and just hoping that I’ll keep getting to where I’m going.

Both candidates seem to have successful businesses and both just want to make them bigger. Fair enough. Rachel wants more gyms – and while we continue to obsess over how we look on social media then we’ll always need more gyms! I mean, where else would the country’s vain halfwits find mirrors big enough to pose in?

Phil, on the other hand, wants to expand his pie business after admitting that he didn’t have the vision to take it any further. And after he made a truffle flavoured vegan cheese that didn’t really taste of truffle…or cheese for that matter, in the last task, you can possibly see why he thinks he lacks vision I suppose.

Conspiracy theorists will have you believe that Phil is being set up to win. I mean, I certainly can’t remember a series where someone failed so spectacularly every week and then still made the final. Some have also pointed to the fact that in his win or bust task – the vegan cheese one – he was given the strongest of the other candidates on his team. But then, some of these people probably still think that the Earth is flat.

So, get yourselves set for an exciting final. There’s no clear favourite, but definitely an underdog. But, with the help of some, if not all of the other candidates from the series, there will be one last task to get through before Lord Sugar decides who he’s going to invest in. And of course, there’s my favourite bit of all; where the two successful candidates have to walk into the room for their pitch, usually down one of the longest walkways or staircases in the modern world. It has to be one of the most awkward TV moments of the year and every year a little bit of is secretly hoping for a trip!

The Apprentice 2024 Final. Can’t wait!

Poetry Blog: ‘Willow’

It’s the Easter holidays and as I’ve got some time on my hands I decided to sit down and try and write something for the blog. Other commitments have been getting in the way of late and so my blog has been very much neglected.

So, with not a lot in mind to write about, I thought I’d trawl through some notebooks and accompanying scraps of paper in order to see what poetry I have knocking about. It turns out that there are quite a few that have either been started or simply finished and then just left and so, after quite a bit of reading I decided to add this one to the blog. It brings back a lot of memories and I really like it.

Willow

As the spots of rain get heavier 
and begin to change the colour of the roads
and pavements around,
you scramble for the familiar shelter
of the giant old weeping willow.

Everyone is out, the house locked up,
but you chose friends, football and 
the top of the hill Wembley of a pub car park
over the visit to family,
and now that team mates have chosen bricks and mortar for cover,
solitude in nature is forced upon you.

A mass of leaves and sagging branches provide ample sanctuary,
so you position yourself so not to be seen
from either road or the neighbour's house,
shift your knees up to your chest and enjoy this place
where there is no shouting, no conflict and
no storm of any kind.

The willow tree in question here is the one that we had in the garden of my childhood home. Everyone else regarded it as a nuisance because of its sheer size and mass of leaves that would be shed in autumn and litter the surrounding area, but I loved it.

I’d play in it as a small child, inventing games and characters and swinging on those branches. As I got older it became somewhere to hide and just be on my own, away from what I remember now, rightly or wrongly, as a lot of shouting and anger in our house. Sometimes, as in the poem, it was just a convenient shelter of a different kind as the rain just didn’t seem to get through it. As I got older, I’d often stay at home when my parents went across to see family, but would rarely remember to take a key. These things got forgotten when there was a game of football about to start! And so, I’d end up just sitting under the tree to escape the elements.

In later years, after we had moved out, the tree was cut down. I still kind of miss it to this day.

Spring, where the first cut is the deepest, noisiest and the smelliest!

Well, it would appear that we’re well and truly right in the throes of Spring! The weather is largely warming up – although we stood out in hail while volunteering at ParkRun this weekend – and the days are getting lighter all round. There’s colour in the garden and I’ve also been able to get some washing out on the line, which always makes me feel a bit more optimistic about the time of year…I don’t really know why.

Today though, I thought I’d write a little bit about my morning and the sights, sounds and the feel of Spring that I got to experience. Let’s just say that none of it really stuck to the stereotypes!

So, this morning, seeing that we were going to have dry weather until early afternoon, I took the opportunity to give our back lawn its first cut of the year. It’s always an arduous job as by the time the weather is good enough, the lawn has always grown to a good few inches in length and is soaking wet, meaning that it will take hours to get through. In truth, I despise having to do it!

At this point, I’ll introduce my neighbour. Now, don’t get me wrong, he’s a lovely, well meaning elderly gentleman who’d do anything for us. He’s also very hard of hearing and loves to chat. The job of listening to him generally falls to me and believe me when I say that sometimes this can be even more arduous than cutting the lawn as he never really hears what I’m saying and has a tendency to repeat a lot of what he’s already said to me!

Anyway, having got the mower out of the shed and put it back together – it’s over 10 years old and very much on its last legs – I started to mow, kind of knowing exactly what would happen next. I was still surprised by the immediacy though!

After no more than 20 seconds of mowing I heard the click of the neighbour’s gate – one of the first sounds of spring round these parts. And when I looked up, there he was. My neighbour. He didn’t really wait for me, just set off talking. So the mowing got delayed for a while!

Our back garden is bordered by houses on both sides. My aforementioned neighbour’s garden runs parallel to ours, but on the other side, the end of two gardens back onto us. One of these neighbours has a terrible habit of clearing his throat and nose, very loudly. He seems to save it all up for the moment he sees me in the garden as well. It’s not something I hear much of through winter as I’m not outside anywhere near as much. However, this morning just as I’d reached the end of the first couple of strips of the garden, there it was. Another delightful spring sound. A wonderful hacking of the throat and nose sounding like it had been played through Glastonbury’s PA system, all the way from inside his house to the middle of my garden. And every time I stopped mowing, there it was a again! This must have gone on for about 10 minutes! So, no nightingales singing, just the sound of phlegm!

I had the wonderful Spring experience of clearing fallen blooms away too. We have an enormous camellia that gives us an abundance of huge bright pink flowers from February. It’s genuinely stunning. However, the downside is that by the time I come to cut the lawn, hundreds of flowers have fallen from the plant and litter the garden. And I get the job of having to pick them all up, as if I mow them they splatter all over the place. In turn, picking them up gives me the wonderful sensation of soaking wet flowers in my hands and also quite a few slugs, who seem to find the flowers far too good to resist. I hate anything on my hands, so this genuinely makes me feel queasy.

Later, sounds included a really annoying crow, some girls walking along the footpath that borders the back of my garden and swearing loudly and my neighbour’s wife asking if he wanted a cup of tea – she didn’t extend the offer to me. I also managed to unearth some cat poo in the long grass, before sliding through it a little later and suffering the stench of it every time I went near!

Finally, the sounds of spring reached a wonderful crescendo when my neighbour came to talk to me twice more; once to rant about the price of the new England football shirt and the modifications made to the flag of St. George on the back of it – capitalism, mate – and then to talk of something that seems to be uniquely him!

He’s a keen gardener and tends to order his plants off the internet. However, I swear that every time he does, they seem to mess up his order. And then, when he complains, the companies always seem to send him more than he needs. This isn’t just restricted to plants; he’s had plant pots too. And he always offers us his cast offs, which is nice, but even when we politely decline he just doesn’t listen and brings stuff around anyway! This happened again today, which given that we’ve only just started ‘garden season’ is quite some going! Anyway, to cut a long story short, despite turning them down we’re due to get a load of free mystery plants in a few weeks. Lord knows what we’ll do with them!

So, Spring has indeed sprung. But round these parts there’s no delightful birdsong or the smell of budding roses; no, just elderly neighbours, coughing and sniffing of Olympic proportions, wet and dirty, slug laden hands and the feeling of almost pulling a hamstring as you slide through hidden cat poo!

Reader, I hope your Spring is going better than mine!

Northern Ballet – Romeo and Juliet at The Grand Theatre, Leeds.

I’ve been slightly fascinated by ballet for most of my adult life. There’s something amazing about a story told solely by dance and something incredible to me about those who can do so. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d ever go to watch one though! As a working class lad from the north-east, I didn’t think I’d quite fit the profile for the kind of person who’d go out to watch the ballet and I didn’t think I’d ever get the opportunity.

However, things began to change in the early stages of last year while I was at home recovering from my heart surgery. While mornings were usually spent getting some kind of exercise, afternoons were for recovering from the mornings and by the time the evenings came round I was often fit only for sitting in front of the telly and that was about it! On one such evening, with the living room to myself, I was flicking through the channels looking for a change from the norm and there it was – Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet. I watched it, captivated.

Fast forward to February of this year and upon opening the final birthday present from my wife, there was a ticket shaped piece of carboard in a huge box. Expecting tickets to a gig or a comedy tour I flipped it over to reveal…tickets to Northern Ballet’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. While I was surprised and a little bit puzzled, I was also really pleased.

And so, last Saturday, with mere minutes to spare – we were cutting things fine, as ever – we took our seats at the Grand, not really knowing what to expect. So, let me tell you a bit about the ballet.

The first thing that struck the both of us was a little detail about the audience; it seemed like about three quarters of them were drinking white wine in the theatre. Not in the bar, but in the theatre. In fact, while squeezing past a group to get to our seats one woman smiled and told me, ‘Just watch the wine’! Now, I’ve been to lots of theatre shows over the years and never have I witnessed such civilised debauchery! But almost everywhere we looked there was wine flowing.

Whenever I’ve thought about ballet in the past, I’ve heard an orchestra warming up beforehand. That kind of discordant mix of various instruments that I assume is musicians tuning up. I thought this was just a daft stereotype that I was relying on, but sure enough with seconds to go until curtain up, there it was! Even that was a bit of a thrill!

As the ballet started though, the orchestra playing Prokofiev’s soundtrack were wonderful. The set and lighting had a hazy, almost other-wordly feel to it and the sight of Romeo and Juliet on opposing balconies stretching to attempt to touch felt somehow profound. And then the balconies were pulled apart and the two star crossed lovers simply got further and further away from each other.

Another thing to point out here; for a very short while I was waiting for someone to speak. It is after all a Shakespeare play and so, as someone who has seen a fair amount of those in my time, I struggled a little to adjust. However, within what could only have been a few minutes I had relaxed into it and was simply carried away by the story and the beautiful way in which it was being told. I mean, who doesn’t know the story of Romeo and Juliet?

I don’t feel qualified to review the ballet from any kind of knowledgeable standpoint. Those on stage looked magnificent, at the very top of their profession, but unless anyone literally fell over, I couldn’t really judge.

What I do know is just how impressive and emotional the whole thing was. I knew that watching ballet in a theatre would fascinate me and I was in no way disappointed. For the majority of the time there was just so much going on on stage that I’d be trying to watch everything with a keen eye, fully aware of just how much I’d be missing elsewhere on stage. This wasn’t simply about the two main players. Every dancer excelled in their ability to convey emotion and the events of the story and the whole thing was just a feast for the senses (well, eyes and ears anyway!).

I sat watching for over 2 hours, admiring not only the fact that Northern Ballet’s troupe were just so graceful and powerful, but also marvelling at their stamina. As a middle aged runner, I’m thrilled with myself for going for a run for around an hour. I regularly speak to friends about how fit footballers are with the sheer amount of distance that they travel in a game, but the realisation of what these dancers were putting themselves through for such an amount of time couldn’t be ignored. I’m sure it’s something that seasoned ballet fans take for granted, but it was just another thing that absolutely fascinated me about the whole thing.

At this point, I wish that I had more knowledge to impart, but about as far as I go in this particular area is knowing the names of some of the moves. I’ve little or no idea what they look like though. What I can comment – again – on is just the level of skill involved. The choreography must have to be so incredibly detailed that for a mere plodder like me, it doesn’t bear thinking about. I watched in awe as dancers spun and soared in perfect time together and dovetailed across the stage with great agility and power in order to tell the story. Beforehand, I’d wondered if I might drift off given that the whole show was well over 2 hours long, but it really wasn’t an issue and I was invested in the tale from minute one.

I can’t finish writing without singling out Kevin Poeung, who played Mercutio and gave an incredible performance. He was just impossible to ignore and brought real personality to the role, adding just a dash of comedy and mischief where it was needed in order to accurately give us the unpredictable Mercutio that we would have expected. In short, Kevin’s was a brilliant and thoroughly entertaining performance among a cast that really were fantastic.

Watching Northern Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet was a genuine thrill for me and I’d really recommend going to see anything that they put on. And this wasn’t just something I think I can tick off some kind of bucket list, either. I’ll definitely go back to the ballet sometime in the future. So, if like me, you’re wondering what a ballet might be like, I could only recommend that you too take the plunge.

Poetry Blog: World Sleep Day

It was World Sleep Day last week and when I realised this I had a couple of thoughts. Firstly, I wondered how I’d never heard of this before. I mean, I’m a big fan of sleep and so having missed out on a formal day dedicated to it, I was kind of surprised.

My second thought was that I could write about it. Maybe an article about tips for getting to sleep – something that I’ve suffered with in the past – or even something scientific, like maybe 10 fascinating facts about sleep.

However, I ran out of time – too busy sleeping…just kidding – and therefore decided that I’d try and write a poem about sleep instead. There wouldn’t be much time to work on it or draft and re-draft, but I’d give it a go. As it turns out, this was a tricky one to write from the moment I introduced some rhyme and thus, I missed my deadline. Regardless, here you are; my poem about sleep and it just so happens that it’s a few days after World Sleep Day!

Sleep

Some nights like the proverbial baby,
I close my eyes & slip away into that friendly coma
to help me have a better tomorrow, maybe,
but other times, sleep is broken, cruelly unstable
and I'm isolated and counting lonely hours 
at the kitchen table
reading while willing submission to come to the fore,
but feeling just like the tyrant
that I'll surely sleep no more.
The nights where sleep is deep and fuller
exhaustion carries me into a world of dreams,
set sail on an ocean of movement and colour,
making life seem different from the moment I wake
while on other nights I drift off as I plot my route
on an imagined or remembered walk or run,
knowing this distraction will soon bear fruit
as I drift away, out for the count, to sample life's chief nourisher once more.

As I mentioned previously, getting rhyme involved slowed the whole writing process down here. That said, without it I think I’d have had a poem that was plodding, at best. As it is, I think the rhyme helps. I usually see it as a hindrance as it narrows down the words that I could include and often spoils lines and although there are a couple of rhymes that might be just a tiny bit forced, I think in all, it works.

When I was thinking about sleep one of the first ideas that came to me was the theme of sleep being so prevalent in Macbeth. Books and plays are often my first port of call as an English teacher. So I made sure that there were a couple of Shakespearean references in there and combined them with my own experiences of sleep, which is something that I’ve struggled with a lot in the past. Hopefully, it works and you enjoy the poem.

Spring is springing, so why am I looking back?

As we creep out of the darkness that winter has held us in for the last 4 months or so, I’m finding myself casting my mind back a year. I don’t want to. I’d told myself I needed to move on. And yet, here we are, reliving many of the negatives of a year ago and I’m not entirely sure why.

This time last year, I was 4 months into my recovery after heart surgery to fit a pacemaker. I was suffering physically and mentally. However, while physically I was slowly getting better and might even have started running again, mentally I was struggling.

I would continue to struggle for a while longer too.

This time last year though, I could at least feel like the end of being so poorly and frankly useless, was in sight. Every day I’d go for a walk and since starting this in the November of the previous year, I’d gradually been able to go out for longer. So, a year ago I was managing to take myself out for a walk for a good hour, some days more if the weather was brighter and warmer. I’d just wander, but mainly I had two routes. Either I’d walk slowly up to one of our local parks and take in the sights there, or I’d head out a bit further across some farmland and along a public footpath, past horses and cattle and down towards a golf club before realising I was way too tired and ambling home.

As the days got warmer and lighter I started noticing more. Leaves appearing on trees, buds of life on shrubs and flowers and as soppy as it might sound, it gave me a bit of hope.

A year on and it’s funny how things change. I’ve been back at work and back to the usual routine since around March 2023 and I don’t feel like I’ve settled at all. I still feel my pacemaker every day. It’s just there; a slightly heavier presence in my chest than normal. Day by day, it just sits there and whenever there’s even the slightest palpitation or flutter, it just kicks in and works. Sometimes, for no apparent reason it makes the area around it ache and can be more than just a little bit uncomfortable. Recently I’ve had a sharp pain around the place on my chest where the wires come out of the top of the pacemaker. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, but I’d rather it wasn’t there as well.

Being back to ‘normal’ has been strange, mainly because deep down I don’t feel like I am really back to normal. Most things are a bit more of a strain than I remember. I’m much more tired, much more easily, which in turn means that I have to really try hard not to be grumpy at everyone and everything! And I am really trying.

In September, when the new academic year started, I made it my goal to just try and be relentlessly positive. I praised classes for the slightest thing, spent a chunk of down time every day adding positive points to our monitoring system so that kids could see I appreciated them, kept smiling and was as energetic as I could be in class and even in meetings, which was a major struggle for me!

I felt that the positivity had slipped around Christmas time. I was counting down the hours of the day, the days of the week and just clinging on for the weekends when I could relax and just get out more and have time to think.

Since January I’ve tried to get back on that positive horse and I think I’ve done ok, but if I’m honest I’m still just clinging on. But then clinging on is not losing my grip, so maybe I should be grateful. I find that I’m looking back a lot. For one, I wish I’d admitted to being poorly about 6 months before I did! Whether much would have changed, I’ll never know. I’m also thinking back to those early spring walks and noticing the colour returning to the world. Oddly, despite feeling so lost at that particular time, I really miss it.

I remember speaking to a friend when I first had my operation last year. He’d previously had heart surgery too and he told me that feeling like myself again was going to be a long process. Turns out he was right!

So, while the buds appear on the shrubs in the park and trees begin to go green once more, I’m looking back when I really need to look forward. Maybe I should take spring as my inspiration. Clearly, some kind of changes are needed.