Twenty hours

I’m on a train to Yorkshire
in bright sunshine for the day
Left when dawn was breaking
as it’s many miles away
Just shy of twenty hours
this working day for me
From the South Coast and then back again
by midnight hopefully

Some may question if my sanity
is all there and quite intact
as the day will be a long one
there is no doubt of that
But the purpose is resourceful
and the outcome will be great
despite the early start
and the getting home so late

©Jemverse

Photo – Kings Cross station, London, UK – Jempics

Really really big

Three thousand people
In Brighton last week
met Brian to talk about space
Not a seat there was free
it was thrilling to see
with excitement right there in the place

The screen on the stage
was the biggest I’d seen
and when filled with the cosmos out there
It filled one with awe
with the things that you saw
and the wonders that he had to share

There was Einstein and theory
and other deep things
and we all lost the plot several times
But the man on the stage
was a seer and sage
and he kept us all feeling just fine

There were quantums and quarks
and black holes and stars
thousands of light years away
Talk of time travel
and other strange things
to mess with your head some would say

But despite all the vastness
and really big stuff
It was good to remember that we
have a life for the now
which we all somehow
need to capture quite wholeheartedly

Astrophysics aside
the professor complied
that really when all’s said and done
reminding the crowd
as we all clapped loud
that the journey had been lots of fun

©Jemverse

Photo – Professor Brian Cox at ‘The Brighton Centre’ – live – Sussex – February 2019 – Jempics

Dubrovnik

1 of 16 in the Jemverse ‘Venetian Vistas’ series

Flew into Dubrovnik
Walked round the city wall
It really was quite beautiful
with plenty to enthral

The views of Adriatic
seas with islands in the bay
was really quite breathtaking
and spectacular I’d say

Games of Thrones was filmed here
Kings Landing by the sea
And it gave a special way to start
the cruise for Sal and me

©Jemverse

Photo – Old Town city walls, Dubrovnik, Croatia – looking to the Adriatic sea – Jempics

‘Dubrovnik’ starts the 16 part Jemverse ‘Venetian Vistas’ series, charting a Marella cruise of the same name in August 2018

Born to the sun revisited

I’ve seen fifty-nine summers
and have loved every one
For back in the fifties
I was born to the sun

A child of a Thursday
I had far to go
But I’d hardly have guessed
what I now have to show

For I’ve memories a-plenty
and a lot more to come
For this child of the summer
who was born to the sun

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics

Homeward Bound

As stations go, the Lime Street one
here in Liverpool
is rather nice and will I’m sure
make some people drool
Architects and engineers and
railway history buffs
Will, weak of knee, pontificate
about minutiae stuff

But for most its hallowed arches
and Victorian splendour will
be lost within the purpose
that its innards do fulfil
As, like me on this cold morning
a train inside is found
with the sole and special purpose
to take me homeward bound

©Jemverse

Photo – the frontage of Liverpool’s Lime Street station – Jempics

Chania

Part 11 of 20 in ‘The Aegean Shores’ series

Past a little wooded island
down a Cretian estuary
To the Venetian port of Chania
sheltered from the sea

The Pilot was a Master
A joy to watch his craft
as he turned us on a sixpence
with thrusters fore and aft

©Jemverse

Photo – Souda – a small unpopulated island in the Bay of Chania, Crete, Greece – Jempics

I didn’t get a picture, but the dock at Chania was only just big enough to accommodate the Thomson Dream. Watching the pilot manoeuvre the ship using just the thrusters though, was quite something.

[This is part 11 of a 20-part series charting a seven-day cruise with Tui from 11-18 August 2017, travelling from London to Corfu, then Kalamata (Greece), Santorini, Rhodes, Crete, Piraeus (Greece), Kefalonia, Corfu and London, some 3,870 nautical miles]

Kalamata Heat

‘Kalamata Heat’ – 3 of 20 in ‘The Aegean Shores’ series

I found a spot of sunshine
with no-one else around
Overlooking Grecian waters
with just the ocean sound

It was very hot – some forty plus
but pleasant in the breeze
as we sailed to Kalamata
through Mediterranean seas

©Jemverse

Photo – The Thomson Dream approaching Kalamata on the Peloponnese peninsula, Southern Greece, 12 August 2017 – Jempics

[This is part 3 of a 20-part series charting a seven-day cruise with Tui from 11-15 August 2017, travelling from London to Corfu, then Kalamata (Greece), Santorini, Rhodes, Crete, Piraeus (Greece), Kefalonia, Corfu and London, some 3,870 nautical miles]