Saturday was a day of the poetry stanza, so I spent my usual waking moments taking my vitals, checking messages and then getting up for breakfast. By mid morning I was alone in the house and putting the finishing touches to my poetry contribution. By noon it was raining hard as I lunched and then set off to the stanza venue.

There was just the five of us this time at the Stanza, which left time for chat and to nibble the biscuits that people had bought. We thought that people had not come due to the rain. All the poems were interesting and well formed. Mine was well formed but I felt no where near the artistry of the other four. As a result of small numbers we finished early and I was able to drive back in the light.

A fish and chip tea saw the family move into the evening and the film The Queen of the Dessert, a bio pic of Gertrude Bell an English writer, traveller, spy and political officer who became and expert and influencer in the middle east. The film had her literally riding off into the sunset on a camel across the desert having told two princess they would become kings, which in life they actually did. The reality of her life was that she died of an over dose of sleepi.ng pills some time later. So with the film over thee was football highlights and night meds to take before getting off to bed. Al day I had tried to keep to my two hourly routine of hand exercises and compression as my finger continues to recover. This night I took pre-emptive paracetamol before donning my night finger splint and also added a layer of athletic bandage round my palm to padding to the palm.

Sunday in general the pre-emptive paracetamol and addition padding on my hand worked. I slept reasonably well and both I and my partner rose late after I had made warm drinks for us both. Breakfast followed by some “puttering around” during which I wrote snippets of a poem. Once my small number of chores were done I settled down to make sense of my jottings and finally got them into some sort of shape. This had clearly been formed out of yesterdays experience at the poetry stanza meeting.

434
I wonder if I have killed poetry,
taken something from the indescribable 
that I seek to capture in words. 
All those meters, iambic, trochee,
Villanelles and sonnets, the swathes of
forms and 
analytic tools I use 
to dissect what is and isn’t there.
How strange a world we live in.
I stub my toe and yell FUCK!
and then I wonder,
was my full-frontal fricative F
F enough,
Or the soft and singular vowel 
sufficiently sibilant
before the curly K and 
kicking K guttural end
to let catharsis begin?
Is this this the explanation of what
I left behind in childhood
while I learnt to colour 
inside the lines?
Or is this the self-conscience seeking
of what I now call adulthood. 
I murder my Villanelle 
and return to my pen and ink 
hoping the flow returns.
                                                                       434 16-02-2025

A world of too much analysis I think is the message, However no time to rest on my laurels I accompany my partner to the village Co-Op and get a paper and other essentials like Tunnock’s Tea Cakes and Crunchies. Returning home there is afternoon crumpets and a drink to be had while I draft the blog. Its a very British afternoon, writing, nibbling crumpets and reflecting on the world, that a friend described as “living in a dystopian Sci Fi novel”. I might join her in a glass of red wine, which does not seem such a bad way to counter the current political pissing contest that is going on.

In all this is my desperate need to get back to training, I need to do that soon before I loose any resistance to the side effects of my medications. I need to row again. To that end I have ordered a pair of sailing gloves that should offer protection to my hand scar. Once I have seen the hand therapist on Thursday training must begin in earnest again. I am managing to keep my weight more or less on the hundred kilo mark but I need to drop eight to ten kilos before next Christmas.