Tag: Sunshine

New Year’s Day

As the first day of Freshers’ Week, today – if you work in higher education – almost felt more like New Year’s Day than 1 January itself. There’s a buzz around the campus again, the kind of buzz you miss when everyone’s away over the summer months. Its absence stands out like a sore thumb, but so does the warmth you feel when it returns. As it turns out, that warmth may well be conducive to creativity too. I’ve spent nearly every week since my last post scribbling waffle in my notebook to varying degrees of desperation, but ultimately, nothing I wrote had any life in it. Most of it stopped making sense in the end – I was flogging a dead horse. Happily, I don’t feel that way typing this. It feels like the fire underneath has been reignited, to an extent.

I gave four short appointments to students today, new faces who were each looking for part-time work. I obviously can’t go into detail about who I spoke to or what we discussed, but I can tell you that seeing them become visibly more relaxed about their prospects was immensely satisfying. There can’t be many situations where you can see weights lifted from people’s shoulders in real time. I always say that I’ve felt valued over the last 18 months, but that’s never been truer than it was today. I made a difference, however small, and when that happens you can’t possibly struggle for new material. There are virtues to extol, and not only in my professional life, but my personal life too. My archery beginner’s course looms on Saturday – the first session, at least. I’m looking forward to it, and to hitting more than the woodwork this time. I just need to make sure I build up my upper body strength a bit first, because those bows are tough without a decent pair of biceps. I’m sure I’ll let you know how it goes. Here’s hoping I have another reason to smile by next Monday!

Mason

A Restaurant In Athens

I think my latest snippet of overheard conversation is particularly appropriate to share if you’re in the UK at the moment. I was eating my lunch in the sunshine last week, and a couple of benches along, a lady was speaking on her mobile phone:

“Yesterday it was a restaurant in Athens, and today it’s a sandwich at work. All over, just like that. I haven’t even unpacked!”

She might not have been in Athens any more, but with the weather we’re having in Winchester right now, I’m not sure it’d be all that easy to tell the difference between them – right?

Mason

Good Medicine

Everyone says, very accurately, that laughter is the best medicine to help see us through difficult times. An equally effective antidote, however, can be found in that funny luminous orb which occasionally (but not often) decides to show its face in Britain. Sunday was thankfully one of those days, and although I have a difficult relationship with the more rural parts of the world – generally preferring somewhere more lively with people going about their business – I was happy to write in the garden with a cool drink. I had opened my notebook with thoughts of my summer poetry project – described in “Accordion” – firmly in my mind. I found myself once again needing to prove to myself that my poetry could be half-decent, especially if I was going to spend my summer focusing on it, so I gradually scribbled some verse while my family watched on. What did I use as inspiration? The sunshine, of course, and specifically how it was lifting my spirits with its warm embrace. You can read the poem below – just bear in mind that it was composed hurriedly and may not be of as high a quality as something more considered. This time I can’t hide behind the fact that it isn’t finished yet!

I hope you like it – it has certainly made me feel even more eager to begin the poems that lie ahead:

I never thought that much of you
Your green and pleasant land.
But then I see a different side
When I am in your hand.

I feel your rays within my veins
I feel your tender touch
Your beams do dance upon my skin
Loving me so much.

You let us share you with our friends
Unite our lives as one.
As we forget our small divides
To bask in summer sun.

And though you do go in again
The memories remain
Like bright and vivid Polaroids
Unblemished by rain.

And when you are not in the sky
I save you a place
In my mind so that you can
Still shine upon my face.

Mason