It’s been quite an eventful couple of weeks.

A fortnight ago I was readying myself to start a new job, with an air ambulance charity. Then, at midday three days before my start date, I got a call to say the role was no longer available. Apparently internal reprioritisation, but I suspect an illegal war and rising oil prices creates financial issues for a charity running a helicopter four times a day.

Such is life.

I wasn’t heartbroken about losing that particular role, which is interesting, but it was a kicker to be job hunting again. Two weeks later and I’ve had a couple of interviews and am prepping for a third.

It’s exhausting.

But this isn’t another post about the extra energy it takes AuDHDers to get through an interview, due to second guessing social cues, overcoming imposter syndrome and the need to be accurate rather than selling themselves, trying to maintain eye contact, and feeling like competency questions are a trap for the unwary.

It’s actually a post about finding inspiration away from the laptop.

Earlier this week I was researching for an interview I really wanted to go well, for a conservation charity I’ve applied to many times. (I interviewed with them last year and made a complete hash of it.)

Stressed isn’t a strong enough word.

Anyway, as I started to unravel, I took myself off to a nearby nature reserve, braving the mud and 25mph winds to walk the dogs. To remind myself what all the effort was for.

It was perfect.

Yes muddy, yes blowing a hoolie, and yes I got lost. Again. In a 25 hectare wood. Hush.

It’s a small but mighty Wildlife Trust reserve, ancient woodland, a tiny remnant of Rockingham Forest, filled with bird song and the promise of spring.

And it inspired a poem.

Now I haven’t written poetry in over a decade. So it’s probably not great. But it felt good to be inspired (with a little assistance from the Merlin app to identify the bird calls)

Anyway, here it is.

The ocean wood

A-tin a-tin a-tin calls the great tit to the wheaking nuthatch.

Deep in the shadows, coal tits chatter in dolphin as, around and above, the wind is a roaring crashing sea.

Blue tits flit from leaf to new leaf, caught on the current.

A pod of clouds races past, cut through by the fin of a kite. Red gives a sailor’s whistle, and swirls higher than the crow’s nest.

Living wood creaks as wind fills her unfurling green sails.

Beneath the waves, shoals of purple sweet violet and yellow celandine dance in the darkness.

Chu-cha, chu-cha; the chiffchaff sounds out the steady turn of a windlass.

Anchor aweigh and hang on. 

Ride the swell of sound, wind rushing, roaring, surfing the crests of the trees and out across the sandy swathes of elephant grass undulating sand dunes to the shore.