Here is the news

Koi are swimming up the High Street.
Overwhelmed by inundation,
The river has broken through the concrete.
Koi are swimming up the High Street.
Everyone is sick of wet feet,
Or, trapped in houses, incarceration.
Koi are swimming up the High Street,
Overwhelmed by inundation.


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Your Universal Mother Reads You Your Rights

…mankind owes to the child the best it has to give.
from Declaration of the Rights of the Child*

You have the right to live.
Nurtured deep within; my miracle.
Your name forever entwined with my name.
Belonging.
Your body, butter-fat and berry-shiny
Nursing at a full breast
Cooing in contentment at life unfolding.
But I see questions hidden behind your eyes
As insects plague your face.
You are too weak now to cry. Too small.
A numberless child in a teeming world
Today I can only dream a future for you.

You have the right to play.
Safe in your castle, my princess, all dragons slain.
Explorer, boldly seeking out new worlds.
Pretending.
Your imagination stirred for no purpose.
Soldier, swaggering, wooden gun held high,
Laughing as your friends fake death.
But your games have become grim reality
As together we trudge along the dusty road
Our few possessions wrapped in a bundle too heavy to hold
Fleeing the knives, the flames, the rapes.
Today I seek sanctuary for us.

You have the right to a father.
Proudly proclaiming his children to the world.
Bouncing his infant son upon his knee
Protecting.
Jealously guarding his precious daughter from all harm.
Unable to withstand the wasting from within,
The pressures from without.
But as I sleep alone, unloved.
I recall those undarkened days,
Entering into my emptiness where he once lived.
Deserted through disease, poverty, war
Today I have only my memories of him
Tomorrow …

*Proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 1386(XIV) of 20 November 1959Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Geneva, Switzerland

Things to do when you don't feel like...

Above anything else, I'd like to write for a living... probably not much of a living, admittedly, but why not? My words are the same as everybody else's. Just not necessarily in the same order.

Well ..

First of all there's the daily but necessary tasks of walking the dogs,come rain or shine, (I think even the Labradors are getting fed up with water) making sure we have clean clothes, feeding us, occasional teaching... you know, general domestic chores that in themselves take no time at all!

There are the other daily essentials - like checking my email hourly (Why? No one ever sends me anything truly excting and my junk filter gets rid of the seedier ones) and seeing who else is online at the OU First Class site, playing solitaire, visiting Club Penguin ...

Then there's thousands of other would-be writers trying to do the same. Yes, we all encourage each other, get excited when they have a success, however small - and that, probably is the real reason why I and most other writers of my acquaintance don't actually write...
We all think everyone else is much better than us.

...and that may not always be the truth. How often have you got to the end of a book and thought 'Well that was a complete waste of a few hours of my life' ?

So, why do some good authors get rejection after rejection, and the bad ones still get printed? Answers, please on a postcard.

And until the right answers come along, I'll keeping writing and revising and printing stuff to send off, and then putting it in the recycling bin.

Race For Life

Way to go girls... We couldn't quite work out why Nivea were providing Factor 50 suncream that day. At the time of entry, it seemed like a great idea - a Sunday morning jog/walk between Bournemouth and Boscombe piers. Anyway, the usual good naturedness overruled and we did it, cheering on complete strangers who were on their way back soon after some of us had passed the start line.

OU A215 Survivors nationwide have run, walked and crawled to raise awareness of all types of cancer, and because it was something we could all do for one of our number. We have smiled and cried at the tributes worn on backs, and, I guess, more than one of us has promised to go again - much leaner and fitter next year. Yeah, right.

One of my pupils has been complaining that I haven't updated my blog for some time. So, Michael, this posting is dedicated to you, and as I can't think of anything else to post right now, here is a poem 'wot I rote'.


Green is for trees.
I don’t like greens with my dinner.
They make me feel rather sick.
Mum hides them beneath my potatoes,
But I always find them real quick.

Last week, outside in the garden
I had a taste of some snails.
The texture was just a bit crunchy
But I lived on to tell you this tale.

Now earthworms are something quite different.
They’re smooth and they slip down quite fast.
I found a whole bunch in the compost;
I rather enjoyed that repast.

The chalk from my blackboard is dusty.
It turns my mouth green, pink or blue.
It’s not my favourite munchy
‘Cos it’s very hard work to chew.

Some stuff on the beach is so gritty,
It gets in my mouth and my nose
It’s difficult eating a picnic.
It’s the sand which is there, I suppose.

But I’m still not eating that green stuff.
My mum says it’s good for me.
I say, give me fish fingers or pizza
And hold back on broccoli.