A Quiet Week

No car.  It is now in hospital - I had to drive it there yesterday, following Captain Butterfly, dreading that awful smell of burning starting up again.  We made it, and I am hoping it might be back today so I can get to the meeting tonight.  Someone will certainly give me a lift, but the problem is that I find other peoples' cars very difficult to cope with.  

I thought it might be time for a poem - and I have chosen this one, as hopefully my dive thriller will be out sometime this year. And I have tried to convey the beauty of the island in it, while keeping it interesting.

ON BANDOS ISLAND

by me 

Palms iced with frangipan

Hide coral strand

Coconuts carelessly

Crash onto sand

Hermit crabs shop for shell

By mangrove root

At night giant bats glide out

Hunting for fruit.

Reading this, I think what Philip Larkin or John Betjeman could have done  with it, probably using almost the same words. It could have become a lament for our mortality - who knows?

As it is, is more of a verse than a poem.  I think I did hope to do something with the fruit hunting bats - something about nature being "red in tooth and claw".  But clearly I didn't.