I'm pressed for time this week, but wanted to post something so I had a look in my documents folder and found this poem that I wrote...guess when!

At the time I lived just outside of Harrogate, North Yorkshire (a beautiful town - it won my affections). Home was the servant's quarters attached to a rather grand house a couple of miles down a sheep track in the middle of nowhere. Sally, with whom I rented what we called "the cottage", and I thereby had all of the perks of living in a country pile (gardeners, peace lovely peace and pheasants to wake one up each day)with none of the expense!

It wasn't all a bed of roses and I was living there for one of the saddest of reasons, but all in all it was a special place. As I drove down a hill on my way to the cottage, leaving Harrogate on the Skipton Road, the scene before me filled my heart and so I wrote this poem. I probably shouldn't say this, but for me it catches those moments perfectly. Maybe you had to be there...

YORKSHIRE, FROST, FEBRUARY 2008

Outside
The fingers of the frost are touching up the grass again
The grass might like this I don’t know; sweetness could be transferred by the cold one’s kiss.
What I do know is that for today, mid-February,
We had all that late spring days should bring
Including sun until dusk, and when driving down the Skipton road I saw
The mist like candyfloss flow round the trees
As they stood helpless in the valley ahead.
The chill arrived unsaid but felt, and ripped us from the fruiting time to coal.

Inside
Half promised, part consumed within the hearth whose heat I half resent.
The smoke will drift in to the wind and maybe warm the errant sheep* up on the lane
This is unlikely though, since frost has gripped the grass and acts
Like skinny snow.


*As I drove up the lane from the cottage this afternoon my way was blocked by a dozen sheep who had got out from the field and were grazing on the hedgerows. They panicked at my arrival in the car and could not understand the threat I represented so, fearful of a sudden move that might damage my car I drove with great caution until got past them and up to the farm. At the farm I said “Some sheep are loose in the lane”.
“Not mine mate” came the less than useful reply.