I realised looking back over the blogs for this year so far they have veered from being miserabilist to being rant-y. not surprising really in view of what has been happening in the world, politics, climate crisis etc. However this one is going to be my first, and I hope not my only, cheerful blog of 2026. So here is a list of some of the things that have cheered me up no end.
First of all and top of the list our Andy is back in parliament and likely to be Prime Minister before too long. Two of our friends were in Makefield canvassing for him and we have been celebrating. It is the turn of the Right, political and media, to be miserabilist and complain. Maybe there is a chance now for change to happen rather than just be talked about.
Secondly I have discovered, thanks to a member of one of my WhatsApp poetry groups, the wonderful funny poetry of Brian Bilston that has had me chuckling for days. Even better, it seems he is coming to read at the Morecambe poetry festival in September
Also in the recent heat and following rain, my vegetables are growing at last.
My writing life
I have now received my manuscript for my first collection back from the professional editor who has been looking at it for me. Over the next month or so most of my writing life will be taken up with responding to the edit and entering a couple of competitions.
My reading life
Apart from Brian Bilston I have enjoyed Sarah Howe’s latest collection Foretokens (Chatto and Windus, 2025) and I am reading Rebecca Wragg Sykes’ book Kindred about the Neanderthals (don’t ask!).
Hare in the Headlights
Nothing to report
Poem of the month appropriately is Beneath the Surface.First published in my Wayleave pamphlet Testimony, it feels appropriate as we are experiencing the effects of climate change so dramatically with unprecedented heat waves followed by torrential rain and unseasonal high winds.