Tag: Optimism

Always look on the bright side: Five Things That Made Me Smile in June.

Every once in a while I like to write these blogs, mainly to remind myself that in amongst all of the reasons to moan about life, there’s always something to smile about. It’s nice to send some positivity out to readers too though. We all need to moment to smile about, don’t we?

So, what was turning the frown upside down in June then?

  • The weather. I don’t know about where you live, but here in the UK, in our little corner of West Yorkshire, it was wonderfully sunny for a while. The British joke about this, of course, is that we spend most of our year complaining that it’s too wet or too cold only to then complain that it’s too hot when we get our annual 5 day heatwave! It seems the weather gods can’t win! However, the sunny weather made me smile. And while it doesn’t make running or working in the garden any easier, it does make the whole place look better. We had a few afternoons spent just sitting, reading and chatting in our back garden and the colours are fantastic. And then you look up and see a clear, vividly blue sky. How could you not smile?
  • The Borrowdale Banksy. If you don’t already know, then Borrowdale is in the Lake District here in the UK. It’s a National Park and an area of outstanding natural beauty. Borrowdale itself is a particularly remote area but for the last couple of years, slate sculptures have been appearing; the work of the Borrowdale Banksy. No one seems to know this Banksy’s identity, but the sculptures are fantastic, as you can see below and news of the latest one made me smile.
The latest Borrowdale Banksy sculpture in the Lake District
  • Eating Out. June is a very busy month in our house as there are two family birthdays within 3 days. So, much of the first part of the month gets taken up with planning and buying presents and it just feels like we’re rushing around for weeks. This year however, we decided that rather than just eat out to celebrate both birthdays at the same time, we’d go out twice. This was smile-worthy for two reasons – delicious food and drink and no dishes for me to do! And then, having enjoyed the meals so much we decided to end the weekend with a Sunday roast in the pub!
  • A Science Cover. Covering lessons is one of my least favourite things as a high school teacher. You often don’t know the class or have the faintest idea about the subject and you’re usually required to move halfway round the school to get there, meaning that you often arrive late with a chaotic cluster of children waiting for you, excited by the fact that their teacher’s not here. It also means that you’ve lost a free period. On a delightful Friday last month, I walked into my room and turned on my computer to discover I’d been given a Year 7 Science cover. My only free of the day, gone! I was gutted. However, a few minutes later, things got better when a member of the Science department came down to tell me about the class being moved. She asked if I’d like them to come down to my room, so of course I said ‘yes’! First problem removed. Then it turned out they were doing an exam; a peaceful cover almost guaranteed. Sadly – but much to my amusement and hopefully yours too – once I’d settled the class and got them going with their exam, my inner teenager came to play. I had the brainwave of thinking I might try to do the exam myself. Why, I don’t know. I was appalling at Science at school. But when I opened the first page I was delighted. The first section was human reproduction and try as I might to have a proper go at the questions, all I could do was attempt silly answers. The results, below, had me stifling giggles and holding off smiles for what felt like the rest of the day. And yes, to confirm, I am a 51-year-old man.
  • Local Legend on Strava. Lots of you will know that I love running. It’s been important for both my physical and mental health, especially over these last 5 years or so and it’s been something I’ve done on and off all my life. Nowadays I track my runs via the Strava app on my watch and was thrilled on a recent run to find that I’d earned a ‘medal’ for an achievement. Eager to see if I’d beaten some kind of personal best, I was straight on the app in order to have a look. Imagine my surprise to discover that I’d become a ‘Local Legend’ on a stretch of my run that others in my town must use regularly. Imagine my surprise turning to fits of laughter though when I discovered what I was the local legend of. My official title is ‘Local Legend of Poo Bins to Topcliffe’, a stretch of path that leads up to a local mill building at Topcliffe from…well you can work the rest out for yourself.
Let’s concentrate on the ‘legend’ rather than the ‘poo bins’.
  • The Leeds 10k. I’ve written about this already in another blog post, but June was the month that I completed the Leeds 10k, which would have been reason enough to smile in itself. However, I also managed to run it in the fastest time I’ve managed since my heart surgery – 56 minutes, if you insist on asking! – and this kept a smile on my face for days!

So, in terms of good stuff happening, June was an excellent month. Even getting a cover lesson ended up with me smiling, even though it was a very juvenile reason! I hope you enjoyed reading about it all though!

Poetry Blog: ‘Light brings hope.’

This is a poem that I’ve been meaning to write for a few weeks now. Or rather, it’s on a topic that I’ve been meaning to write about. It’s a topic that I think I’ll revisit in the coming weeks too as it feels like there’s a lot to write about.

It’s that time of year where suddenly, it doesn’t feel like Winter any more, but it’s not really Spring either. Of course, Winter is still with us. However, we might just be emerging from the worst of it and the snow, the storms, the driving rain aren’t quite as persistent now. Days are definitely brighter and daylight hours noticeably longer. I think this gives us all at least a little bit of happiness.

At the weekend, standing on the touchline of a field in north Leeds, coaching my football team through another game, it was decidedly chilly. But rather than the big bench coat that I’ve worn for the last couple of months, I was able to wear a hoodie (over my usual layers) and still be just about warm enough. This small detail made the whole morning a lot more bearable and it felt like a pleasure to be there. It certainly made the narrow defeat a lot easier to take and in doing so made my teamtalk afterwards a lot more positive!

Light brings hope.

The thick frost that whites out the windscreen is still not enough
to blight the start of the day.
Even the inevitable prospect of work, peeking over the horizon
cannot alter the mood.
Light brings hope.
Slowly but surely, Winter is being pushed back and soon
sunshine will leave the snow, the storms, the darkness and the drizzle
as just a distant memory; an annual appointment written in the diary, added to the calendar, but so far off it is forgotten for now.
Light brings hope.
Suddenly, when we wake, rooms are not pitch black,
breakfast is eaten with curtains open as we watch
the first forays of the sun reflect in windows of houses opposite,
we drive into the sunrise, self conscious in sunglasses,
peering past visors and watch as the off white skies magically turn to an iced blue that hints at Spring and dares to dream of Summer.
Light brings hope.

I like this time of year. It signals almost an end to the time of year that I dislike the most. Let’s just say that I’m not a fan of November, December and January in terms of the misery and darkness it brings with nights closing in and weather getting worse. February always starts to ease my mood, but in truth that might just be because of my birthday and the fact that we’ve seen off January. But as we enter March, things change.

Plants are coming to life in the garden, you can feel the sun and it’s lighter. And this has had me thinking – as I said earlier – of poetry for a few weeks now. So, I’m hoping to write a few more Spring based poems!

For workers, this is a nice time of year. Unless you work shifts, I suppose. But for those of us that head to work in the morning and back home again in the late afternoon or evening, there’s a shift in mood at this time of year. In short, it’s lovely to be starting my commute as it’s just getting light and then heading home and in the light too. And why? Well if you’ve been listening at the back, you’ll know the answer.

Because light brings hope.

Feel free to leave a comment about the poem. I always enjoy feedback and to be fair, people say some lovely things!