Early railways

How did I know
At the age of two
That train guards shouted
Everybody on, and
Everybody off?
My Nan's settee was my train
And Blackie my only
Passenger
Did this foretell a
Career in railways? ;-)

LMC Oct 2012

Too many demons

Too many demons. Can it really help
to go so deep, to free them all?
A carapace gives shelter, even though 
the past it covers is never resolved.

How can I get the strength to lift the lid
examine all these hidden demons
and then put them away 
until our session next week?
Did you think they were buried
all these years for no good reason?

Listen, that girl that you feel so sorry for 
SURVIVED. The pain today
is just an echo of what she went through.
Even though, with perspective compressed, 
It feels as if it all happened at once,
She grew. And put some strength inside
as well as on a shell. So use it now. Survive!

LMC 23Nov12 

Ada Lovelace Day

Today,  don't wonder whether 
women do science and technology
today, on Ada Lovelace day, we celebrate our community 
by honouring those who helped us know

I draw a line from a time before
I ever thought of being an engineer,
Vaughan King inspired me 
to use learning to support my world
when all else was so chaotic


Then with feminism came 
the glorious Women in Manual Trades
like me they'd battled through skillcentres
borne the pain of unfair treatmentand 
and raised wild songs to keep us strong

Peggy Seeger made my anthem 
'I'm gonna be an engineer'
and I didn't believe it until, 
27 years later, I finally became chartered

So now the line goes on
my goddaughter, Alexia, in France, 
is studying engineering
an Olympian of maths 
and of champagne physics 

Today don't wonder whether women
are scientists and engineers
follow Ada Lovelace blogs, and look around
we hold up (at least) half the sky

LMC 15 Oct 2012

Travelling with Brian

Under a sky the colour of mother of pearl
we are travelling again
Crossing the everlasting Beauce 
passing farms named Hazard and villages
called St Martin de la Mer which are
hundreds of miles from the sea.

Of all our ways, this is the surest,
our driving together
swapping fruit and water
picking a hotel for the night
and guessing, nearly to the minute,
what time we will arrive

in all these years 
I guess we've driven to Australia
swapped Everest base camp for 
good hotels with stunning food
found in the middle of nowhere
on roads of continuous hairpin bends

LMC 11Oct12

Choice

A summer's span 
I've worked out here
And now as autumn comes
I leave the
Herring land knowing 
international friendship 
and the sureness of
my independence
LMC 22. 08.2012

Winter knitting

Winter's such a great time for knitting
amazing colours lighting dark days
warm wool growing from my hands
and the quiet meditatative nature
of following the pattern


I must take all my tails of wool
and make a knitting chair like this one
snuggle up within it (with the cats of course)
and knit until I've overflowed the room
in colours and curls

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Knitting-Relay/141668129261835

LMC 07JAN12