Goodbye 2013

Breaking almost a whole back tooth on a toffee was the final straw for 2013. Thankfully my dentist has at least made it smooth and comfortable until I can get a new crown fitted. However, that final straw, will not be the last straw for me because I intend to 'Pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again'! I have a god feeling about 2014
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Drizzle, Mist and Quiet Joy  

Soft mist or super fine, lightest, drizzly rain

Not sure which it was of the two was true

Starting out along a familiar woodland lane

I marvel at the thousand faces of the same

Place I have for years wandered through 

Most of it hides from view this day

Just fifty metres in any direction clear

Then falls the shrouded backdrop play

Clopping unseen riders chattering gaily

Hearing them invisibly coming near 

None of my favourite ‘Big Birds’ call

They seem stop-at-home in the wet

I imagine them huddled up in some tall

Tree deeper in the wood or scarp hill fall

With patience to wait to feed later yet 

Seriously slip-sliding on a cambered path

Muddy spreading puddles now demand

Some focus to avoid a cold mud bath

With chosen steps I hold a tree as a staff

Preventing a hurly-burly roll before I land 

The Saxon village shapes below cannot be seen

As all paths at this point climb and link

The mist thickens higher up and seem

Like low cloud in a mysterious movie scene

Yet in familiarity nothing scary here I think 

Soaked to the skin and cloaked in mist

Surrounding landscape lost from sight

Hat back on to help the chill desist

My gloves un-pocketed to cosily enlist

Still a huge pleasure in dim midwinter light 

The sheep cluttered crown of this dismal place

Gave some perspective through the drear

Still closing dampness to start a downhill pace

Path lost, so found the wrong gate at the base

My right handed gait brought me this to face 

A left turn quickly put the route to right

And back to where I knew I should be

Cloud clears putting mystic mist to flight

Green fields of winter cabbage bright

As my age old path down the valley I see

Winding down 2013

The annual end of year turbo session was done yesterday with friends from Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club and just a few of us from Trinity. Much more civilised in their venue in Arundel than in our very cold packing department at Stephen Belt Antiques and Shipping. I did three hours, of the four hour session. Whilst my husband/coach/best friend Steve, soldiered on to the end, I went for a nice walk in the woods with my daughter Jakki's dog Louis. He is staying with us until his family get back from a short holiday in Turkey. The notes I took during this walk resulted in yet another of my nutty poems that have become a daily feature of me life. The poems are my self therapy sessions and save me from self combustion!

Fallen Tree 

A full grown tree

Downed by the storms of late

Lays like an unconscious giant

Not so much uprooted

As is more common

When trees are felled by a tempest,

But viscously torn apart

As if by massive teeth,

Ripped asunder

Toward the base.

What force,

Completely smashed

This once lovely tree.

Clean exposed core wood

The colour of desert sand

Faces out and upward

Among huge splinters

That themselves give evidence

To the monstrous destruction.

Close to the sodden ground,

The torso, the corpse,

The recently sound trunk,

Has itself committed

An almost equal crime;

As it fell,

The sheer weight of the big tree

Brought about life’s finale

For two younger, weaker trees

That now involuntarily support it,

Slightly off the ground

Like the worlds strongest man

Lifting the Olympic medal winning weight.

Ivy still clings to the great mass

Stretched like a bow string over the

Decimated woodland giant

That has stood handsomely there

In the middle of a tight,

Closely tree-ed wood

Showing off the beauty of its

Abundant foliage for decades,

Now it lies, mangled, mutilated,

Humbled and beaten

Beyond any hope of repair,

Still sucking the last drops of sap

From the minute strands

Still attached with weakening sinew’s

To the stricken base,

And by that to the life giving roots

Still firmly implanted in the ground.

No miracle surgery can save

The life of the broken tree.

The time it has left….

Is only in wait for the saw and axe.