Mixed Blessings

 Wood Anemones on Angmering Park Estate Woodlands

With spring, sort of easing more into early summer, I always start to feel livelier. I am not a good do-er in winter as the farming community say. There is no denying that I am much happier in summer with more light and warmer weather about. We are also into wedding season and I have two reasons to mention this. 

One is that my friend Michelle Chittenden (who has made a couple of visits to our poetry group meetings) ‘s daughter Chelcie, who along with her fiancée Matt were recently in the local papers because having been turned away from hospital after checking in with rapid contractions: then immediately delivered her own sweet baby Zahra at home as soon as they got indoors! What a drama but the excitement in the family does not end there because. Matt and Chelcie then a couple of weeks later, won a wedding competition on Spirit FM Radio worth £15,00.00 (Yes fifteen thousand pounds). They are now in a position to name the day and not have to wonder where all the money would be coming from, so very well done and many congratulations to the happy couple on their mixed blessings. They were also to be heard on Spirit FM Radio talking about it. You can find that broadcast for a while on the Spirit FM website on the afternoon show. 3-7pm I think it was.

The other reason for bringing spring weddings into the chat is that my photographer daughter Jacqueline Rackham gave me a challenge/stroke, my very first commission when she asked me to write a light humoured poem that could be used to ask the over enthusiastic congregation not to spoil all the best shots as they snapped away with their mobile phones. My immediate and first response to the plea is this poem below: I did offer the change anything that she did not like, and she responded that she liked it but it was too long. At that point I thought it might be a good idea to throw this challenge out to everybody on our group email list and indeed the blog page. Please feel free to send your own idea’s for Jakki. Rik; perhaps this is one for you since you do like a bit of humour and have a way with words that send the corners of the mouth retreating in the cheeks of our amused faces. Please all have a think about this as an idea for next weeks meeting on Sunday 22^nd. 

 

 

Mixed Blessings

The long awaited and worked for wedding day

for which they diligently saved up all their pay,

should be the happiest day of their life

when they wait to be husband and wife.

This day is theirs when two hearts connect

And we should give them all of our respect.

Let us think about them walking down the aisle

setting our own needs aside just for a while.

They’re paying a professional to record each minute

The perfect photograph: NOT WITH YOUR ARM IN IT!

Take your own snaps on your mobile phone

but don’t spoil this special day for your own

satisfaction in your rush to take a shot,

that it is their day, you momentarily forgot.

Bide your time for later on when it’s clear

you won’t spoil the day for those you hold dear.

Hold back your happy but forceful enthusiasm

or twix your love and them may form a chasm.

A quick thoughtless action from yourself

might cast a shadow on the living room shelf.

Let them have this special day’s recollection

Keep mobile phone hidden beyond detection.

Thank you.

For those among us who frequent our beautiful woods one a year maximum just the see the Bluebells in their full glory, I have to point out that the photos here today were taken on the Angmering Park Estate woodlands just south of the Monarchs Way but the Wood Anemones are rife right now and will only last for viewing until the bluebells completely overwhelm them as they always do. They are a vision and do for all the world look like a very light late dusting of snow.

Wooden Enemies

My husband thought this was what I had said

For some years he thought this correct.

My ear did not discern that he’d missed the thread

That he had filed it in his head so defect.

It was when I pointed to his disbelief

During a tramp thru’ a patch in a woody bank

How you see they are anemones by the leaf

He claimed I had a point and to me he’d thank.

Then it was when he confessed his mistake;

For ‘Wooden Enemies’ he thought was their name,

For so many years, he laughed, for goodness sake!

It all made sense Wood Anemone sounds the same.

What indeed is in a name as was said of old?

Aren’t they just a pretty with either brand?

They’ll still show their star to sunshine bold

And close the bell when evening is at hand

 Zahra

Zooming fearlessly into the world to delight

A light weight at five pounds and ounces, five.

However she has shown she is up for a fight

Ready to spread her joy that she’s alive.

Appearing a pretty and strong little mite.

Zahra knows to make an entry with style 

A girl in a big hurry to join the party

Hastens to stamp her mark with a smile

 Rushing to greet us with a welcome hearty.

As delivered by Mum in life’s first trial.

Poetry at the Harbour Lights Café: Meeting No. 6

This message is well overdue and I do send you all my apologies for that.

I have been completely snowed under with all sorts of things that have had to come before poetry I’m afraid. One of the worst things about winter is as we all know that not only are there more nasty bugs and illnesses about but there seem to be more people shuffling off this mortal coil.

There is a funeral on Monday of a cousin of mine and only this week my daughters Jakki’s mother-in-law died suddenly. The death of my cousin caused a flurry of contact from several of my other cousins, who because we are scattered apart, I had not been in contact with since the last family funeral about a year ago.

This is basically just to remind everybody that the next meeting at the Look and Sea meeting room above the Harbour Lights Café is booked for Sunday week March 25^th. Hopefully everybody is looking forward to that as much as I am.

Still, spring is springing up all around us and my tiny little garden has pots full of tiny Tête-à-tête, competing with Tulips, Violets and Pansies that are a lovely contrast to all the horribly depressing news of late. The only good thing about this time of year is that there are loads of good movies to go and see thanks to the Academy Awards and good old Oscar,

compared to summertime when there is a glut of animated family films for the holidays.

 

The little poem here is the result of badly missing our next door neighbours of twenty years who returned early last summer to the small town in the Alsace, where they lived before their move to England. I had been finding it strange that the beautiful red Camellia that peeps over the six foot brick into our garden, has been so very late to flower this year and being a bundle of emotion and imagination myself, I had got it into my head that even their garden flowers and the family of Blackbirds and the Sparrows that reside in the big Camellia have been missing them as much as I have. They are both musicians (The people that is, not the blackbirds) and I have even missed the scales they practiced every afternoon on their saxophones. Our new neighbours are not at all friendly as yet. So this is to Christine and Jan who also ran, walked and swam regularly at all the same places as Steve and I. It was Christine who painted the portrait of me that hangs by my desk and is the subject of a previously read poem of mine,  Portrait of my Soul.

Red Camellia

Peaking over the high garden wall

showing no fear of winter yet unfinished,

surviving through to spring from fall

her strength and beauty undiminished.

Breaking buds like crimson velvet

changing to wonderful deep pink flower

above our wall shows a flashy pelmet

glows thru’ afternoon sunlight hours.

Thank heaven for Mother Nature’s gift

bursting forth despite the cold,

that brings a smile and spirits lift,

born of winter, this colour bold.

I usually mention that if you have a poem that you would like share with the group that I will happily put it on the next blog page. So far though, nobody has taken me up on this offer. Hope to see you all well and happy and free of germs at the next meeting.

 

Saxophones’

 Through the Dividing Wall

Terrace houses may not be ideal

walls are thin and some people moan,

yet there are  benefits I feel

especially when at home alone.

There is a pleasure sweet and real

music floats through on a saxophone,

musician’s next door is such a deal,

practicing scales in a melodic drone.

A home with built in concert appeal

lifts me as I type or answer the phone

pretty waltz as thru chores I reel

cares have through the window flown.

Contact email: dafbelt@outlook.com

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.