In the last two weeks I have had several lovely messages about the previous blog. Thank you to
everyone who got in touch to say they liked it, and to those who even went so far as to buy the book
I recommended, The Poetry Pharmacy by William Sieghart. It always cheers me up to hear your feedback, and to see your comments on the online posts on the website.

Lockdown continues, and so do my walking and poetry reading. Sometimes when life presents
challenges you just have to keep going, and work out how to find the joy somewhere. My poems
have been a solace recently so I’m going to share another one by the same poet, Sheenagh Pugh. This one is about future possibilities, and I find it very hopeful. Sometimes I reassure myself by thinking that if life is so unpredictable that a pandemic can cause so much devastation at the drop of a hat, then surely there is scope for something good to happen equally as unexpectedly?

Take the announcements this week and last week about the early success of two of the Covid-19 vaccines being developed. The first announcement was completely unexpected news, at least for me, and while it’s not the end of the pandemic it brought a sudden hope to my day. It also reminded me that not all unexpected news is bad news, and that there is plenty of scope for future changes to be good ones.

What if This Road, by Sheenagh Pugh

What if this road, that has no held surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way; around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what’s on the other side; who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story’s end, or where a road will go?