I’m going to stagger home at night with a hot bag of chips in my hands to soak up that last unwise drink I had with friends…

Ah yes, friends.

In the flesh.

Remember those?

I’m going to kiss someone inappropriate and probably inappropriately. And any pinging of elastic will not involve masks.

I will sit in noisy restaurants, soaking in the chatter and the laughter, weaving my way to the loo without a single body swerve.

I’ll march into upmarket boutiques just for the hell of it, mooch for hours in bookshops, take the boat down to the Tate.

I’m going to dance on hot sand under a huge moon to eighties tunes

And dive into a sea that feels like a bath which is just as well…

Because I’ll be naked as the day I was born, laughing uproariously, loving every moment, loving this life, just loving…

And until then I will dream of this while I hang here, suspended, staring at a world I once knew through the walls of my cocoon.

Amanda Lees 2021

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And not just because she’s my daughter but because it reminded me of how I used to relish words for their own sake, scattering them through my writing like jewels which drew the reader in with their sparkle. A professional writer sometimes loses sight of the sheer joy of words, just as a professional chef become inured to the taste, smell and beauty of individual ingredients.

Thanks to my daughter, I have had a fresh burst of inspiration, not to mention motherly pride. What she wrote was pure poetry and I share it with you as a piece that rightly stands on its own merits and not merely as the work of a child…or even my child.

Here is what she wrote:

Once a castle a frigid, glacial place. Its turrets were lofty and shameful and its arrow slits were left forlorn and untouched. A palace so flamboyant and fluid, the doors so burnished and sleek, its flags fluttering in the rousy wind. The forest silently sits there, the trees a light or dark green among the others, their musty brown trunks slowly grow puffy mushrooms over the years. An ocean, sea blue as the shimmering red fish hide from the zinc white and grey seagulls. A house, the cement has crumbled, the roof has the tiles slated off and the flowers are beautiful.

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