Blue days and better days

A lonely little shoe on the North Norfolk marsh



Today is such a cold, wet and raw day that it is good to remember special days and sights, such as this sparkly little shoe we saw when walking on the coastal footpath at Brancaster Staithe. It was a decorative as a Christmas tree decoration and crying out to be found. Imagine the trouble when its loss was discovered. Maybe they retraced their steps and found it. We didn't go back to find out.

Which brings me to Moodscope - a brilliant tool to measure mood, which focuses you on improving, sharing and learning from the mood trends. And it is all about trends, as are all measurements. What is the point in a statistic fixed in time, without knowing what went before and followed. I've been doing this more or less daily since April, and discovered that on many occasions my mood plummeted on a Saturday or Sunday. This is not logical, as no one day is better or worse for me, but there must be a reason. Maybe it harks back to that feeling that everyone else was having a wonderful weekend, except me. Of course, that is an unreal as the Prince Charming syndrome. Life is more real and vivid than that. What with Moodscope and Beating the Blues, I really should be a little ray of sunshine soon - like on the Norfolk marshes. Not just a lonely little shoe...

It's all in the family

Having experienced this book's gestation and now birth, it was with some trepidation I opened the Amazon package yesterday. By the end of the day I had read the whole collection, and while it is in parts very hard, angry and quite viscious, it is also loving, caring and moving (in a good way). The hard-core poems are interspersed with beautifully written intercessionary 'prayers' and the contrast is hugely effective.

Susan is nervous about reaction to her personal work. Somehow it is not too difficult to distance oneself from the personalities, acknowledging some truths and wondering if there is not a degree of poetic licence, or rather hoping....  The poems are so deeply felt, that it is difficult not to respond in restorative mood. Don't feel so much pain...try not to despair or over-analyse. But then, we wouldn't have this fabulous collection which are never bland, never trite and always moving. Naturally it is easy to identify with poems about grandchildren and children. I hope that they will appreciate where they come from as much as I do.

I think Susan deserves to do very well with this, her second, book of poems. I shall be doing all I can to promote her success.