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