The Fenland Sea

I often consider The Cambridgeshire Fens to be a vast sea, stretching out for as far as the eye can see. This is especially so at night when the horizon is dotted by the yellow of street lamps and the welcoming lights of homes. Because it is so flat you could be looking at tiny specks of light from miles and miles away.

The headlights of cars and lorries moving around the edge of this black hole could just as easily be coming from ships out at sea; churches, lit up a universe away, could be beacons or harbour lights welcoming travellors home from their voyages.

I took our daughter to her dance class in stretham tonight and our way across the causeway from Soham via Wicken Fen was aided by a huge moon. Though waning now, I wonder how many others it has helped save from drowning in this dry ocean

Remembrance Day

Every day is a remembrance day for me. I'm thinking at the moment about my grandfather who fought on the Somme in the First World War and who, because of being gassed, was never a well man when I came into the world and made his acquaintance.

I've never stopped wishing that he was still alive when I had matured enough to appreciate him and his history, but he died when I was thirteen and more interested in listening to Slade than his stories from long ago. I do remember playing draughts with him by the fire while he, enveloped in a huge blanket, did his best not to cough and apologised with wet eyes whenever he did so.

As a young boy, this man was just my grandad: nothing more and nothing less and nothing special really. But he was oh so special and I wear his ring from the trenches in the hope that some of his bravery and endurance will live on in me. Every day is a remembrance day for me but I wished we'd been able to remember together.