I have written poetry as well as prose during my lifetime. Unfortunately some of them have gone missing. In fact, all but one of my very early ones have gone to that great poetry book in the sky.

Here is one I wrote recently, I hope you enjoy it.

Autumn in Sussex

The Downs are wreathed in mist, like smoke
From a dying fire.
The leaves are turning red and gold
Like flames upon a pyre.

Spring’s little lambs are grown to sheep
The swallows they have flown.
The blossoms that the summer brought
Their petals all have thrown.

Now autumn’s bounty fills the woods,
The hedgerows are ablaze
With hips and haws in colours bright
The senses to amaze.

The smoke from wood fires fills the air,
The scent of autumn true
The autumn sun is cooler now
And mornings filled with dew.

The cobwebs shine with dewdrops bright.
The spider in her lair
Thinks nothing of the rainbow hue
That scatters in the air.

And children kick the fallen leaves
As laughingly they run
To gather conkers, shiny brown,
Gleaming in the sun.

We gather blackberries from the hedge
And apples from on high.
Up in the tree they ripen now
To turn into a pie.

But autumn sometimes has a kick
And the rain lashes down.
The wind, it howls within the eaves
And through the trees doth moan.

Sometimes Jack Frost, with fingers cold,
Paints upon the glass
Pictures of fern and leaf and tree
Flower, bush and grass.

Then suddenly the trees are bare
And autumn’s bounty’s past.
Winter’s cold has now arrived.
With its arctic blast.
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If you enjoyed reading this poem, please make a comment, or ‘like’ it.

Someone recently said that they thought that my cover for The Wolf Pack would look better darker.

I would like to gather some opinions on this. What do you think?

Please let me know by posting a comment.

Thanks in advance for your trouble.

How well can you spell? Go back to school and take our spelling test to find out – BT.

I got one wrong! How shameful is that for an author?

There are a number of words that are frequently confused by people. In this post I hope to clarify nine of these pairs.

 Bought and Brought.

Brought is the past tense of ‘to bring’ and means to fetch something.

e.g. The dog brought the ball back to me.

Bought is the past tense of  ‘to buy’ and means to purchase something.

e.g. When I went to town I bought a new blouse.

The mistake is always using brought for bought and never the other way round.

 Fewer and Less

This is a very common one. So many people will talk about ‘There were less people at the match than last week.’

It should be ‘There were fewer people at the match than last week.’

Less is used for things that you measure (like weight, temperature, volume,etc)

Fewer is used for things you count (like people, goals, items in a basket at the checkout, etc)

A simple rule of thumb can be: If it only comes in whole numbers, then it’s fewer, but if it can be in fractions, then it’s less.

 Literally and Virtually

Literally means that it actually happened.

e.g. It was literally snowing a blizzard.

In this case, there would be no visibility to speak of and snow falling as if it were in the Arctic or Antarctic with a strong wind blowing it almost horizontal.

Virtually means it is not actually that thing. It is used when a metaphor is used.

e.g. The footballer was virtually flying down the wing.

If the speaker or writer said ‘The footballer was literally flying down the wing’, that would mean that he had somehow sprouted wings!

 Infer and Imply

I recently heard a broadcaster on the radio use infer when she meant imply. These people ought to know better. Most, I assume, are journalists, or at least have a ‘good’ education with a degree. They should know the difference, and if they don’t, in my opinion, should not be in the job.

Imply is what someone says when they want to suggest something without actually saying it in so many words.

e.g.‘He implied that he was going to come with us.’

Infer means that someone has drawn a conclusion from a statement.

e.g. ‘From what he said, I inferred that he was going to come with us.’

  Lose and Loose.

This is one for the written word.

Lose is when you misplace something.

e.g. You are going to lose your purse if you don’t put it away.

Loose is when something comes undone.

e.g. My shoelace has come loose.

 Tragedy and Travesty.

A Tragedy is something very sad.

e.g. It is a tragedy that he died so young.

A Travesty is to make something ridiculous.

e.g. The dogs runnign onto the pitch made the football match a travesty.

 Effect and Affect

Effect is a noun. It is the result of something.

e,g, What is the effect of mixing red and yellow together?

Affect is a verb. It says what something does.

e.g. How did the accident affect you?

 Popular and Common

This is one I heard from young people when I was teaching.

Popular means well liked by a lot of people.

e.g. Dean was always full of fun and so was very popular with his team mates.

Common means that there are a lot of them.

e.g. Herring gulls are very common in Brighton.

In this last incident, many pupils would say that the herring gulls were very popular, but if you asked the car owners of Brighton, I think you would get a very different view.

 Defective and Deficient

Defective means that a thing is broken in some way.

e.g. I sent my new vacuum cleaner back because it was defective. It was failing to pick up the dirt.

Deficient means that there is something missing.

e.g. The new wardrobe I bought was deficient. There were not enough screws to put it together.

Please feel free to make a comment on this post. I will endeavor to get back to you.

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I am now starting to blog on this site as well as my current one on Blogger. I ask you to please bear with me while I get the site up and running to my liking. This is taking longer than I thought it would.

I hope that I will eventually be posting at least once a week on Tuesdays.

Please feel free to make comments about the blog and my books.

I am shifting to WordPress from Blogger. The problem with Blogger is that I can’t seem to read any comments made by my followers. This is a big disadvantage as I want to make contact with my readers. You are all very important to me. If I can’t read your comments then I cannot improve my writing to meet your wishes.

I hope that you will continue to read my posts here and that others will join you.

I have just started this blog. I have been on Blogger for a while, but am not satisfied that I can’t read any comments made. I have been posting on blogger every week and intend to do so here too.

I will run the same post on both, at least for a while then probably discard Blogger for WordPress once I get used to it.