Poetry thoughts, minutes and this week’s heroes

Feeling rather drained today and am hoping to lie low at work and not get involved with anything. Or anyone. So no change there then. In fact Lord H and I are thinking of starting up our own secret Hermits’ Society – it’s just a shame we probably can’t ask anyone to join, as it would rather defeat the object. Ah well.

In the midst of all that, I’m vaguely wondering about writing a long poem. Not something I’ve ever tackled before, or even thought of – as my usual approach is that if a poem doesn’t say what it wants to say in the first ten lines then it’s not worth reading on. It’s only a vague thought though, but we’ll see. UPDATE: I've started something, am quite enjoying it and will see how it goes.

And – relief! – the weather was good enough to go for a walk round campus at lunchtime. Which was much needed before settling down to take the minutes of the Nursery Group this afternoon. Actually, in spite of my child allergy, it’s not too bad a meeting to minute and usually ends early, which is nice. And the members tend to be the most complementary of all my meetings about what I provide in terms of notes etc, so that’s nice also. Always good to be appreciated here in the slow lane!

Oh and this week’s heroes are (a) the Health Centre – who saved someone’s life last week who was having a heart attack (huge well done to them!); (b) the Mayor of Mount Isa in Queensland who has a welcome ready for “beauty-impaired” women (hurrah!); (c) Andrew Marr for having lovely diction; (d) Gillian Magwilde from Bonekickers – what a super-heroine and a role model for us all indeed; (e) Mary Poppins for being practically perfect in every way; and (f) Team GB at the Olympics.

We’ve been rather confused this afternoon by the email from the Marketing department to let us know that they were stuffing polylopes with information for new students to be sent out tomorrow. We’d never even heard the word “polylope” before – but a swift piece of research tells us that it isn’t a type of antelope after all (sending an antelope with new student information on its horns would have been the ultimate in pizzazz for our forthcoming Freshers, I feel …), but simply an entirely polythene envelope. There you go then. Shame though.

Tonight I’m popping into see Gladys, who probably hasn’t realised I’ve been away at all. After a couple of weeks, it’ll definitely be time to refill the bird seed pot. UPDATE: actually she was really glad to see me and we had a half-hour chat, hurrah! Which was only marred slightly by the jolly Philippine nurse commenting on what large noses we both had and were we related? Hmm, time for me to rush to Queensland where I might be more appreciated, I feel ...

And later it’s the second episode of “Maestro” on TV – though I doubt Lord H will watch. He was traumatised by it last week – he hates it so when people struggle, whereas I was concentrating on the parts where they did well. Anyway, I’ve always rather fancied conducting – a marvellous way to get people to do what I tell ’em. Pause for evil laughter. Dream on, eh …

Today’s nice things:

1. Lunchtime walks
2. Thinking about a long poem
3. Polylopes
4. TV.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website