For my Year 12s

Just in case any of you have decided to wander back over here, having taken your own journeys, either with trepidation or true cyber explorers' zeal, into the world of blogging, or perhaps, before you have embarked ... I felt I should add something to the blog so that the date of the most recent post doesn't look quite so terrible. I have to confess, though, that I am cheating somewhat - the restrictions imposed upon me by the pile of marking next to my chair prevent me from writing something new tonight but I promise to do so soon - couldn't leave you to venture into this world alone without a guide, could I? Just call me Tenzing.

So here's a poem written a couple of years ago for an Australian teacher who was working at EWS and was really struggling to see anything even remotely positive about English winter mornings:

As the lights go down on a winter’s morning,
A street slides into electric darkness.
Creeping behind, a hazy light pushes sluggish feet to work.

A setting sun still more distant than the setter,
padding behind loyal master,
his rich tones brazenly teasing the fading
colours of the dry leaves melting in the frost.

Mrs Magpie hammers home her drilling chant,
her mate turning away towards the approaching foggy brightness.

Glitter on the pavements and walls, lifting onto skirts and coats;
Giggling girls opening Christmas cards on the way to school.

The push up the hill – puddles and leaves burnished with bronze droplets.
Final step to the brow of the hill,
blanketed by the warmth of the sunset, flooding the sky at last

Just another grey and miserable English winter morn.