Start as you mean to go on

Start as you mean to go on.

Well that’s that then, all the Christmas and New Year stuff completely done with once again. Now we can get on with the good things that we are aiming at in 2018.  It is good so to have goals and I have plenty of my own that I am looking forward too. Looking forward is a devil of a lot more sensible than looking back; we surely are all agreed on that. Onwards and upwards.

Steve and I have been on holiday for a very greedy 18 days with literally mountains of snow, the most we have ever seen. We have been away on a winter holiday almost every year that we have been together, apart from the couple of years when Steve’s mum was suffering failing health. I gave up skiing a few years ago after my last skiing injury took 10 weeks out of my triathlon training and when I decided which sport was most important to me, the one that lasted a week or so or the one that has filled my life for so many years.

This year Steve has not skied either, and so instead we had a concentrated swimming holiday in the unbelievably awesome Ovaverva Centre. We stayed in the Hotel Reine Victoria right across the road from the pool in St. Moritz, Switzerland. We swam every morning at 10am and did not get back to our hotel until about 1pm. No, we didn’t swim all that time, but each session was at least twice as long as any we do at home and we swam every day, instead of four times a week which is our usual.

 These two are my husband Stephen on the Cresta Run thirty years ago

The Ovaverva also has a large outside pool with massage jets of every kind so you could sooth aching muscles or loosen any stiff areas, whilst gazing at the breathtaking Engadin Valley Mountains on the clear days or experiencing the most unusual effect of being snowed on as you relax in the hot steaming water. Actually on one day we were swimming in a blizzard with tiny drops of ice pinging into any part that was out of the water. Regular dips of the head under the water were essential to stop your head freezing off.

Tomorrow we are spending some of the day watching our GB Bob and Skeleton men and women on a practise day before the World Cup event that follows. Steve and I are both great fans of the sliding sports and have both ventured on one of the guest runs they arrange every now and again in a four man bob. Steve can make a much greater claim, in that he has on a number of occasions in the past ridden the Cresta Run. Last year we took a weekend trip to St Moritz for a World Cup downhill ski event, so you see we are a pair of winter sports fans extraordinaire. Soon to come, is the European Figure Skating Championships and of course the Winter Olympic Games.

Two much younger Belties on an early ski holiday years ago

This morning was the opening of entries for a regular yearly favourite event of ours, the 2018 Swimathon at the end of April. We both entered first thing today for the 5000 mtr event. You can do shorter distances or choose your own distance. I always recommend the inclusion of this challenge in a triathletes training because you don’t often have the chance of a long uninterrupted swim like that, with a lap counter and of course a medal if you need any more, and it is a great confidence booster.

Next event that we will enter very soon before it is full is another local event to us in Littlehampton that being the Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club’s Frosty or Frost-bite, a really fun friendly event. It is a swim run 400mtr/5km or 800mtr/10km. A great social event.

World Champion biathlete Martin Fourcade

Steve and I have two Ironman 70.3 races, also already entered, to look forward to in June as our main aims for the year. The first is Elsinore in Denmark which we so enjoyed last year and is European Championships again. Then 13 days later a new one at that distance in Lahti, Finland. As yet we have only entered one other event and that will be a new experience for me though not for Steve. We and a few of the usual suspects from our circle have entered the Dart 10Km. This is a point to point river swim in the River Dart needless to say. The swim is in September.

I think this 2018 plan shows a basic determination not to spend too much time thinking we are bored. Boredom is not something I suffer with ever.

On what is clearly another quite separate plain, we will be forging on with getting the monthly meeting of The Harbour Lights Poets up and running with the help of Arun District Council have given us a Small Arts Grant and that will pay the hire fee for three months, paying for our time in the meeting room above the Harbour Lights Café, at the Look and Sea centre by the River Arun in Littlehampton. Poets, Writers, Playwrights, readers, listeners and watchers all equally welcome. Buy your tea of coffee and come on up, you do not have to be a member.

Next meeting is coming up fast.

January 21^st at 2pm

What a Difference a Day Makes

                                                       Photo by Jacqueline Rackham 

 

Today was a special day in number of ways. Firstly although it was bitter cold first thing, there was a deep blue sky and when we started our run the sun was very low and blindingly bright, casting long tree shadows that crossed the whole field beside us as we began our run. I wore my prescription sun glasses as protection from the cold as much as the sunlight but none the less tears rolled down my cheeks in the chill.

We had chosen to make our first attempt at10km since the chest infection that knocked me out of action for the whole of September and October. It has been a slow comeback but then as everybody knows, I am not twenty one any more. Recovery is a slower game as one gets older. Slower, but not impossible.

My swim has come back nicely, the first of my sports three disciplines. For a time I understandably had my doubts about whether or not I would be able to find anything like my normal triathlon form.  Biking has been done bit by bit on the turbo and last Sunday I took part in the first group session with Steve, (husband, coach, best friend) and the usual suspects at the fire station. Big screen, music, rising temperature and a bit of jolly banter.

Completing the three discipline comeback to near normal has put a big smile back on my face and the warmth of happiness in my heart. Completing our usual 10km route backwards was Steve’s last minute idea, the logic being that if we did it that way round it was harder to cut it short if it was less than enjoyable. However it was a most enjoyable session, the time was slow but the distance was achieved.

We have already entered three events for 2018 and about to commit to a couple more, so although my determination hit a few wobbly spots along the way the path is getting more clear with every passing day.

Bumping into a group of friends from Tuff Fitty triathlon club coming the other way was an added bonus.

The wildlife count was pretty good too, Kites, Buzzards, Wagtails, a Robin and a Kestrel. No deer.  Down side was the sound of a full scale shoot going on and the vans full of beaters set to send the birds to slaughter. The thousands of pheasants are bred in cages and tipped out to amuse rich folk. 

Yellowhammer

Roughly where abouts you live              

Popping up to say a bright hello               

As walkers pass right by your home          

Unaware of the pleasure you give            

Flitting about the wide hedgerow             

Prejudice is not found in your nature    

First with other birds to appease             

Joining flocks of bunting or finch          

Singing out to other tiny creature                         

‘Little bit of bread and no cheese’         

Though no bigger than a sparrow        

Yet far more beautiful to the eye          

Head and body a brilliant yellow          

Cleft tail tipped white so narrow           

Darting suddenly into bluest sky          

Gleaning specks of seed and grain            

Daintily thru’ the hedge you squeeze       

Playing hide and seek with friends            

Dark streaking on proud breast so vain        

Sing ‘A little bit of bread and no cheese’ 

    

The next writers meeting at the Harbour Lights Café

will be December 10^th at 2pm

Everybody welcome readers, writers or listeners.

Poetry at Harbour Lights Cafe

 

  This great poster created by my daughter. www.jacquelinerackhamphotography.com

Poetry at Harbour Lights Café

Remembrance Sunday November 12^th was also the day we held the second meeting of our new writing group and it went very nicely  Steve and I thought.

We had some very positive feedback and most people said that they would come again the next time we met, at the Harbour Lights Café by the lovely River Arun in Littlehampton.

Next few dates that are already booked with HLC for your diaries are:

December 10^th

January 21^st

February 25^th

March 25^th

Same time 2pm.

Same place, the meeting room above the Harbour Lights Café.

Once more there were a few new people who came along, some to read and some just to enjoy the afternoon with other poetry and reading/writing lovers.

Just to remind you all that if you would like me post one of your poems on this page, I am only too happy to do so.

Please email me on dafbelt@outlook.com

This here below, is one of mine after my run along the Monarchs Way in Angmering Park Estate this morning with Steve.

 Photo of Angmering Park also by Jacqueline Rackham

Same Time Same Place

Passing through the woods

is something of a ritual,

nearly every Sunday could

see us there, my best pal

and me.

My husband has many hats

He is also my work partner,

my triathlon coach too that’s

as well as best friend

you see.

Not the only folk in the wood

and I find it a little odd,

so remote a spot we could

we see the same people

not just trees.

A couple of dog-walk providers

go there at that very time,

and groups of horsey riders

chatting to each other

long reins free.

One man says “Good Day”

very firm, clear and loud

an actor’s resonance I’d say

long striding brisk walker

brisk is he.

Strings of classy race horses,

riders wearing silky hats

pom-poms for race courses

just a job to them to hack

so leisurely.

There is a little dip to where

one path crosses another

same man every week there

his way back and on my way

route free.

In many different places,

a strawberry roan comes by

we know each others faces,

irregular rider passes

so friendly.

Somewhere well out of town

so several miles from roads

variety should there abound,

same time same place for all

You see.

Poetry at the Harbour Lights Café

Photos of the river shown today were taken by my daughter Jacqueline Rackham.

The  second meeting of poetry scribblers who hang out under their new name  of Harbour Lights Poets will gather  next weekend on Remembrance Sunday November 12^th at 2pm in the meeting room of the Look and Sea Visitor Centre on the floor above the Harbour Lights Café , overlooking the almost spiritually beautiful River Arun half a mile from where it meets the sea in Littlehampton.

Meanwhile, since nobody else has sent me any of their own writing I have filled the space with two of my own meanderings.

The Egyptian Escalator

When I go to Harrods store

the escalator will to me call

and I do not know why for.

It gives me pleasure.

Fabulously extravagant décor

Egyptian splendored hall

ostentatious to the chore.

A feel-good treasure.

The filthy rich this store explore

but I’m held in its thrall

so many visits I’ve lost score.

It has my measure.

As I glide from floor to floor

a balcony singer in a shawl

whose hands reach to implore.

It gives real pleasure.

Up to the top and down to the door

past sphinx masks, Egyptian scrawl

hold court whilst I just adore.

My feel-good treasure.

Hieroglyphics symbols more

slowly once again I crawl,

built to decorate and restore.

Fools false treasure

An owner’s origin and lust for more

Egyptian symbols and columns tall

all wrong reasons I am sure.

Pleasure, measures pleasure.

It holds a magic for rich and poor

in atmospheric bondage I fall

as shoppers to the top all pour.

It has my measure

and gives me pleasure,

my secret treasure.

 

 The World and His Horse

The world and his horse were out today

equestrians tacked up on trusty steed,

out in the woods or on the hilltop way

groomed ready to grasp a ride with greed.

Most woodland outings one see’s a few

All winter fine horses still needs a trot,

today so many groups four or three or two

so starved of fine days that nature forgot.

What more pleasing sight can there be,

than the most perfectly turned out horse.

What more of animal perfection can one see?

out for a hack through the trees and gorse.

Harbour Lights Poets

 Harbour Lights Cafe right in the centre under the Look and Sea tower

 The next meet of Littlehampton’s newest poetry group is just two weeks away on Sunday November 12^th at 2pm until 4pm. That is Remembrance Sunday. I hope that there are a whole passle of poets chomping at the bit to join us and read their latest work. Next dates after that: Dec. 10th / Jan.21st / Feb. 25th all 2-4pm

When we set about starting the group up, it was obvious that a name was needed and since I very often call myself the Phantom Scribbler, we did not stretch ourselves to think of anything else when it came to spreading the word and booking a venue.

There has already been a suggestion for a new and much more suitable name put forward by the very first poet who came to join us and did read several of her poems at the first meeting.

When I told my daughter that a new name had been suggested she came quickly back to me saying that she thought it was my group. Well I don’t think ownership comes into poetry because in our very essence we are free spirits, free thinkers are we not. Besides which, it was only the idea of starting a local group that was mine alone. Steve suggested the venue and we rolled on from there.

So just after Susan Wade emailed me and gently gave her idea of a more suitable name, I can only admit in honesty that my first reaction was to think, Ooooh! That’s a bit more romantic than Scribblers and most suitable. We meet at the Look and Sea Visitor Centre, in the meeting room that sits cosily right above the Harbour Lights Café and through which one must pass to get to the stairs. I can only kick myself for not being the one to see the obvious.

Soon after that I went out for a bike ride with my husband and told him that Susie had suggested that we should be called the Harbour Lights Poets. He turned to look at me almost falling off his bike with surprise and said “You have to say it sounds perfect, doesn’t it”. The next morning queuing outside the reception desk at the swimming pool I mentioned it to our friend Anthony who was also part of the first gathering. He turned and said “That certainly trips off the tongue doesn’t it”. Then it was tested it again on two more friends they looked at each other and said “We are liking that, very much indeed”.

So if there are no objections anywhere, I think we may well become the Harbour Lights Poets. Since there are others interested in joining us, all that is left to say is that you can send me anything you would like to share on this page and I would be happy to post it for you. We look forward to meeting everybody who has contacted us about the group. Until then, more of my scribbling below.

 Littlehampton Bonfire Saturday 28th Ocober a week before the famous Lewes affair.

Guy Fawkes Night Nov. 5^th

Littlehampton (a week early).

During the pre-swim chat last night, I was corrected!

Me! She who should, due to her age and experience

at least, be respected, if not obeyed. No chance of that.

Point of dispute was my question: Why do we,

the British people celebrate Guy Fawkes night.

He, who tried to blow up Parliament in 1605.

My recently retired senior police officer friend said,

“No Daphne, we celebrate the failure of that plot”.

Do we really I wondered, before going to watch

the massive town bonfire lit in front of hundreds

after the torchlight procession through the town.

Fun Fair, music, lights, laughter and chips for all.

Under Cover

Don’t judge a book by its cover

An old saying so wisely tells.

When looking round for a new lover

or listening out for wedding bells.

Knowledge needed ‘ere you uncover

Don’t be bewitched by magic spells,

with friendship you can rediscover

then time, all mystery soon dispels.

 

Oak and Ivy

Unnoticed advancing at a stealthy pace

belly crawling silently towards the prey,

unsuspected being so innocent of face

as owls catch mice, so Oak is Ivy’s prey.

If Ivy even has a plan

or is simply a serial strangler.

Scribblers Writing Group New Dates

Photo by Jacqueline Rackham Photography

 The next time the new writing group ‘Scribblers’ will be meeting is:

Sunday November 12^th from 2pm until 4pm.

So make sure to put that in big bold letters into your diaries.

Then the last meeting of 2017 will be Sunday December 10^th.

We have, in a burst of enthusiasm not warranted by the numbers who attended the first meeting, booked further dates that will take us well into the year 2018.

Sunday January 21^st

Sunday February 25^th

All meetings are for the moment from 2pm until 4pm and as we get more members perhaps we can take another hour and stretch it out until 5pm.

Since the first meeting at the Look and Sea visitor centre, I have received more enquiries, so my husband Steve and I are hopeful that the number of people attending in the future will have grown into a warm friendly crowd of poets and writers.

 Another delightful scene caught by Jacqueline Rackham 

The Look and Sea is such a delightful place to meet and is a joy just to take a walk along the bank of our lovely River Arun to get there.  In the Harbour Lights Café on the entry level, they serve all manner of tasty snacks and tempting cakes a well as teas coffee’s and the like.

Misty Drizzle

Soft mist of super fine drizzly rain,

unsure which is more true.

Starting along a woodland lane,

a thousand trees of similar grain,

routinely I traipsed on through.

Most of it hides from view this day

fifty metres in any way unclear,

a shrouded backdrop falls into play.

Clip-clopping riders’ ghostly words say,

invisibly hear them coming near.

Soaked to the skin, cloaked in mist

surrounding landscape lost from sight.

Hat pulled on helps chill desist

gloves un-pocketed for warmth enlist.

Still huge pleasure in midwinter light.

Another Start Point

Hoping to finish what I have started

first imagined when feeling downhearted,

now every day will be the same restarted

should more wisdom have been imparted?

This far from sensibility have I departed,

a challenge certainly not for the faint hearted.

Pray providence does not have me out smarted

though the plan be sound, an idea uncharted.

Start at the pool, then bike and run I darted

is this stupidity or merely too big hearted?

Everything I need each day is neatly carted

time will tell if this plan was wisely charted.

For every action there’s a reaction,

Can I each day advance just a fraction.

Open for discussion.

Having said some of the things below previously and some of the things below today,

I still confirm my belief that a poem is a mirror in a busy street.

The first of the following is a sonnet as far as I understand the rules.

Then we come to the piece below the dove sketch that follows some of the rules,

but not all of them.

It has fourteen lines

Each line has ten syllables.

There is a conclusion drawn.

It ends with a couplet.

However.

The verses do not rhyme according any formal rule.

We Just Don’t Get It Do We?

What if you can try to live every day

The very best person that you can be,

Few will not find that a refreshing way

be kind and understanding, that’s the key.

Weigh up the good points in all that you meet

Truthfully keeping thought prejudice free.

Frankly talk to everyone that you greet.

hear them out even if you don’t agree.

What is this thing with the torn tatty jeans?

This fashion is something I just don’t get,

From poverty not born so what it means

is a mystery agreed to forget.

By this token hostility can cease;

Let us live forever more in world peace.

 

 What if we still don’t get it?

I feel that people who read this sonnet

did not get the message there within it;

wondered at the sudden introduction

of a flippant and unconnected thing.

It may seem that way, but that is not so,

the meaning is more simple than it seems,

if we encounter something we don’t get

something these other people believe true,

we should allow them to hold their belief.

Allowing them to continue this path

we are not damaged or threatened by them;

peace is kept, though fundamentals differ.

Each of the other, nothing demanding,

just a peaceful lack of understanding.

Daphne Belt

So all I am saying is that if there is a change or a movement that is in a direction contra to our own beliefs or feelings that we should let it slide, let is go, particularly if it does not threaten or harm our direction, our own path, our own lives and homes.

In the original sonnet there is a modern day expression used in texts, email, Facebook twitter etc. that is unacceptable by some. Although it is heavily clear, it is also invisible to others. By including this I am simply trying to reach more eyes, more hearts.

It is also something that can be taken, left alone, laughed at or completely ignored.

Please leave your comments on this page or email them to me: dafbelt@outlook.com