After 6 weeks in London helping to look after my mother I have, at long last, made it back to Portugal. The weeds have thrived, the house needs painting after so much rain and there hasn't been one viewing. I went into Sintra this morning to look for a tile panel to put at the front of the house to make it look more exciting. I went at 9.00 to beat the tourists but they were already pouring out of buses and running around with selfie sticks. Anyway I met a fascinating man who can paint anything I want on tiles. He took me to his mother-in-law's beautiful courtyard garden which had some wonderful antique panels. Sadly, mine will be new, but I chose what I wanted and was even organised enough to have the measurements with me.
For the first few weeks after my mother's fall there was no time or headspace for poetry. I had to drop out of the fabulous online course I was doing with Liane Strauss with The Poetry School as I just didn't have any time. I also cancelled the course I had enrolled in with Kathryn Maris, starting in May. For the first time my poetry mind went blank which was a horrible feeling but I eventually started to do some editing and the muse returned. I entered a competition by Paper Swans Press for poems on Roses at Sissinghurst and was very excited to be highly commended which means my poem will be in their Roses pamphlet, and hopefully read (by me!) at Sissinghurst in June. I've always said I don't write about flowers or love but I also wrote three poems for Emma Press for their anthology on Love. I await the results, but surprised myself by having great fun with these themes.
Poetry Review and Magma were waiting for me on my return so I have plenty to read and I'm also sifting through my latest poems to see which might work together in a pamphlet.
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| My tile panel will look a little like this one |
