Brave or nesh

I braved the weather, people say.  The weather here in the north of England was certainly very moody today but I'd be lying if I wrote that I braved it since I walked in the sun, sandwiched by short bus rides, to arrive at Trinity University for a one-day writing festival.  At the end of the day I walked out to driving rain, but after another five minute bus ride there was enough sunshine to walk for ten minutes. Pretty nesh really (look it up, it's a Yorkshire word, I was reminded by Char March today).

Workshop number one was with Debjani Chatterjee - Postcard Voices, giving a chance for some flash fiction work, and the second time I've attended her lovely sessions.  Later a youthful Joanne Clement - definitely a rising star-poet - had us writing ekphrastic poems. The first few lines written today is my offering for NaPoWriMo, as yet untitled, and inspired by Landscape with the fall of Icarus, possibly by Pieter Breughel the Elder. We also referred to the W H Auden poem Musee des Beaux Arts:

When the men in white coats watch
the needles scratch the blue-ish vertical paper
when the bright yellow-edged fishing boats scarper
sails huffing ignoring the catch
                                     of mackerel and sprats
when women gather their gowns, clutch ....

That's your lot today because I intend revising this for submission in the future.