Friday 7:30 and I am up in order to be ready to for my bloods at 8:40 at the GP surgery. My partner brings me hot water and toast, which I devour as quickly as I can before getting up and dressed. I take my morning meds and then head for my car to drive down to the GP. I do not have to wait long and I am soon called in by my regular vampire nurse. She is remarkable for speed and dexterity with which she takes blood. I am done very quickly and I am soon back home.
The morning is spent clearing away the accrued documents from the past few weeks in order to clear the decks before the arrival of my youngest daughters family. With chores done I write a poem and then start the draft of the blog.
529
Blood tests today
amidst the political dross
clambering over each other
to perfume imagined miracles
a million miles from reality.
It is illusion
fuelled by ego
and greed.
The outside world
doesn’t work.
The people are not up to it
or at least the wrong people
are not.
Its a dance where I am the target.
They try to make me excited,
convince me to care,
to believe I am doomed
unless I buy their narrative and
sell my soul to their madness.
From the banks of life
It is just a procession of
fools and deluded oafs
entwined with each other
with ultimate failure
the only outcome.
All the while I fight
to keep my head above media,
to ask the questions
that children and philosophers
pose themselves.
To challenge myself to be
a better person,
to live kindly,
to find worth in the ordinary
and to take succour
in being alive
alongside the ever
changing change
of nature.
I do not think anyone
will notice if I slip away
and take a quiet moment.
529 15-05-2026
My youngest daughters family arrive complete with my two youngest grandsons. From then on its all young people energy and entertainment. A picnic type lunch and more play before the family go out for a walk in the village park and play area. I stay at home and rest taking a quick nap. On the families return there are drinks and play and baby management until its time for the evening meal. The family dine together until its the children’s bath and bed times. During the afternoon Amazon deliver my new poetry collection. The collection is titled The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Reader of Resistance Poetry, collected and translated by A. M. Elmessiri. A glance at some of the poems tells me I am going to enjoy this collection.
Once the children are in bed and asleep the evening is filled with chat and TV and all the while I wonder if my blood results will come in on time, usually just after midnight. I feel tired and given that tomorrow is going to be a long day with a cup final and the Eurovision song contest, not to mention vigorous grandparenting activities, I may well give myself and early night and curb my curiosity about blood results until tomorrow morning. It will be night medications as usual and hopefully sleep. In all this I forego attending the monthly poetry stanza meeting tomorrow. No good saying family comes before everything if you don’t mean it.
