I think it wonderful how quickly Liz has settled into Poetry Club. Next month, I hope that I might even get to talk to her, given the opportunity.

Or should that be problem?

Wednesday March 7th

Not Drowning but Waving

They saw him, his arms up in the air

And they rushed in to save him:

But I was just happy with how far I’d swum

And not drowning but waving.

Poor chap, he must have had enough

And decided to join the dead

Lurking beneath must have been sad, hidden depths,

They said.

Oh no, no, no. I have none of those,

(He spluttered as they reclaimed him)

I was simply splashing around, having fun,

And not drowning but waving.

In an unusually good mood, I found myself whistling as I pedalled off to the bookshop in my lunch hour in pursuit of the first volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time for this month’s book group. It looks formidable. Or, formidable, as they say in France.

To offset Proust’s yin with some complementary yang, I bought three P. G. Wodehouse novels. I popped these in my bag along with a few other books I picked up along the way: The Collected Poetry of Stevie Smith; Cryptic Crosswords and How to Solve Them; The Little Book of Mindfulness; Anthony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within; and Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. I also thought about buying Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking but it was £8.99 and I wasn’t convinced it would do me much good.

I dangled the bags off my handlebars and slowly pushed my bike back up the hill, arriving back to work forty minutes late. Nobody seemed to notice.

Thursday March 8th

The good mood I’ve been in since Tuesday has shown no signs of abating and, for that, I have been rewarded by the noble and merciful Hephaestus, magnificent son of Hera and Zeus! Not only has he restored my Wi-Fi connection but he has also enabled me to Google who the Greek God of technology is.

And just in time, too. The deadline for next month’s Well Versed poetry competition is approaching faster than information speeding down a fibre-optic broadband cable. I have decided to write about ‘smart technology’: it terrifies me. I stayed up late, tinkering with my poem’s components, twisting its copper strands together, hoping I’ve connected my wires correctly.

Friday March 9th

A Life Sentience

They will be wondering by now where I am;

it’s not like me to be home so late on a Friday,

This will not be forgotten in a hurry.

I can sense their censure, even from here;

hear the hiss of the vegetables as they soften

under the refrigerator’s cool stare

and the dark scowl of the coffee machine.

I should have called, not left them to their own devices.