NE63 Haiku

A New Season Awaits Where is the time going? The autumn equinox occurred on 23 September 2026 here in the UK, marking the beginning of autumn and the end of the “nice” British weather. To be fair, we have had an unusually good summer, with plenty of sunshine and very little rain. The lack of rain can be a concern, though, as it means hosepipe bans, lower reservoirs and reduced crops. Luckily, where I live, that's not too much of a concern. Got to love the North East weather! With autumn coming, it means darker mornings and evenings, which can put people in a downward mood. Myself included. Though there are things to enjoy about the new season. The changing colours of the leaves, with their hues of warm colours; the cosy nights in with loved ones; Harvest Festival; Halloween; kicking and walking on fresh, crispy fallen leaves. There's so much to enjoy about these darker couple of seasons. But how did we get here so soon? It only seems like yesterday I was taking Cooper out for h...

Green rows, red berries Summer warmth beneath blue skies Memories linger

Mjolnir strike s the skies Flooding streets, halting progress  Tiredness and rest

Golden hour rays Aromas slowly drift Laughter lifting soul

Spring leaves sway gently Rain drops cling to wood and steel Holiday come to end

Rays of golden light Goosebumps in the spring breeze Efforts came up short

Showers start and stop Golden sunset breaks through grey Mirrors progress made

Cherry blossoms bloom Old church waits in silence still I linger between There wasn’t much of a plan for the walk. Just time to fill while Cooper was getting groomed, a chance to get some steps in and move a little. Walking through Morpeth, I passed St George's URC Church and slowed without really thinking about it. A cherry blossom tree stood outside, fully in bloom. Bright, soft, new. It caught the eye straight away. The church beside it felt the opposite. Still. Weathered. Waiting. It wasn’t cold, not really. That in-between kind of air — warm enough for a hoodie, but not quite ready for a t-shirt. That same in-between feeling seemed to settle in my thoughts, too. Standing there, I found myself drifting a little. Where am I at the minute? Am I actually healing? Am I moving forward, or just staying busy? Where was I six months ago compared to now? No clear answers came, but it didn’t feel urgent to find them. Just standing there, between something old and something new, felt enou...

Air foggy and cool Clock tick tock tick tocks slowly Tired bloated body There’s a strange stillness that comes with a first night shift. Not silence exactly—machines hum, footsteps echo, tasks keep stacking up—but something in the air feels paused, like the world outside has taken a breath and forgotten to let it go. Tonight, the fog has settled in thick and low. It wraps itself around everything, softening edges, muting distance. Even through the windows, you can feel it—cool, heavy, unmoving. It matches the way my mind feels. Not sharp, not clear. Just… there. It’s my first night shift, and time isn’t behaving the way it normally does. The work is steady, demanding even, yet the clock drags its feet. Each minute seems to stretch, as if it’s resisting being counted. Tick, tock. Tick… tock. The rhythm is there, but it feels off-beat, like it’s out of sync with everything else. My body isn’t helping much either. There’s a weight to it tonight. Bloated, sluggish, tired in that deep, quie...

Rain falls after sun Slick grass tamed by muddy boots Late victory comes Sunday morning, 11:30am kick-off. A dry start, the kind of calm that makes you think the game might settle early. We didn’t wait long. Ten minutes in, we go 1–0 up. A strong start, confidence high. But football has a way of pulling things back — ten minutes later, the opposition find their equaliser. Game on. Then the weather turns. The rain comes in, steady at first, then heavier. What started as a clean pitch quickly becomes slick, muddy, unpredictable. Every touch matters more. Every step just that bit harder. Half-time arrives with everything still level. A team talk, a reset. You could feel it — the need to dig in, to stay together, to believe there was more in the game. The second half becomes a battle. Not pretty, not easy. Just effort, determination, and moments of grit. And then, in the final 15 minutes, it all opens up. One goal. Then another. Then a third. From the nerves of a draw — and the worry of wh...

Sea of yellow blooms Rhythmic swaying in the breeze Spring arrival calms Coming off night shifts always leaves the day feeling slightly out of step. I had a short nap earlier, just enough to start turning my sleep pattern back towards normal, but the fog of nights still lingers for a while. The afternoon school run felt a little slower than usual as I headed out to pick Grace up. While waiting at a roundabout, engine idling and watching for a gap in the traffic, I noticed a bank of daffodils just off the roadside. A whole stretch of them, bright yellow against the grass. A light breeze moved through them, and they swayed together in a gentle rhythm that was almost hypnotic. For a moment, the traffic, the tiredness and the rush of the day faded into the background. Daffodils always feel like one of the first real signs that spring has arrived. After weeks of grey skies and winter weather, seeing that sudden burst of colour felt like a quiet reminder that the seasons are shifting again. ...

Sky bleeds red to blue Light dancing on diamond frost Hands cold scrape windows After six days off, it was back to work this morning. The alarm came early and I was out of the door just after 6am, still adjusting to the idea of a workday again. The sky immediately made it worth stepping outside though — a stunning sunrise stretching across a clear morning sky , colours slowly shifting from deep red into blue. It had been warmer recently, so the cold came as a bit of a surprise. The car was covered in frost and the air had that sharp bite that wakes you up quickly. Scraping the windows wasn’t exactly how I wanted to start the morning, cold hands working over the glass while the engine warmed. But at the same time, the frost caught the sunrise perfectly, sparkling as the light hit it. One of those small moments where a little annoyance and a little beauty exist at the same time.

Days getting warmer Clear blue stretching overhead Cooper runs ahead There are walks that feel routine, and then there are walks that quietly reset something inside you. This was one of the latter. The days are finally beginning to warm, the kind of warmth that doesn’t demand attention but gently reminds you that the seasons are shifting. The sky was clear and wide, a clean blue expanse with nothing pressing down, nothing urgent. Just space. Cooper felt it before I did. From the moment we set off, he was pulling ahead with purpose, running into the walk rather than through it. That familiar tension on the lead wasn’t frustration — it was joy. Momentum. A dog fully present in the moment. We covered just over four kilometres in an hour, a steady, refreshing pace that gave my thoughts room to stretch out and loosen. The air felt lighter, my body moved more easily, and for once, I wasn’t watching the clock or carrying the weight of the previous days. This haiku came from that simple rhythm...

Forty three days rain   Colour drains from the skyline   Breath steadies again By 12 February 2026, it had rained for forty-three days here in the UK. Not always heavy, not always storming — just persistent. Grey skies stretch on long enough that you stop expecting anything different. Today, the weather felt like it had settled somewhere inside me. An anxiety attack came on quietly, without a clear reason. I’ve learned not to search too hard for one. Sometimes they arrive because I’m tired. Sometimes, because I’m fighting off illness. Sometimes, because my nervous system simply decides it’s time. The sharp pain in my chest is the part that always gets my attention. It’s sudden and convincing. Even knowing what it is, it still feels urgent. I use the breathing I’ve practised — 4-7-8 — and ground myself through the five senses. Slowly, steadily, it passes. The rain outside has been constant this winter. The colour seems drained from pavements and skies alike. But just ...

Night moves by slowly   Artificial lights hum softly   Solvents tickle nostrils Night shift has its own atmosphere. Time stretches differently under artificial light. The outside world sleeps, but inside the lab everything continues — machines humming, screens glowing, samples waiting. I felt flat tonight. Not dramatically low, just dulled around the edges. The tail end of a cold still clinging on, sleep not quite enough, energy never fully returning. The kind of tiredness that isn’t urgent but lingers quietly. The fluorescent lights hum without change. The smell of solvents hangs in the air, sharp enough to remind you that you’re awake, even if you don’t quite feel it. There’s something strange about working through the night while your body insists it should be somewhere else. This haiku came from that steady, muted space. Not a bad night. Not a good one. Just slow, measured hours under artificial light.

Views foggy, sky grey   Air chilled, heavy on the chest   Someone shares my words The day felt muted from the start. Fog hung low, the sky a flat grey that dulled everything it touched. One of those days where the air feels heavy, pressing in a little, mirroring the mood rather than lifting it. Nothing dramatic — just that slow, familiar winter greyness that seeps into the bones. Then, unexpectedly, a small interruption. A notification appeared to say that a stranger had shared one of my haiku on Instagram. No message, no explanation — just the simple act of passing it on to their own followers. It caught me off guard in the best way. In a day that felt closed in and colourless, it was a quiet reminder that these words don’t just sit here on the page. They travel. They land somewhere else. I didn’t feel elated or suddenly energised — just gently lifted. Enough to notice the moment, enough to write this haiku. Sometimes that’s all it takes: a small human connection cu...

Sunlight evades me Days pass in half-sleeped shadow Spring waits at the door The world follows a steady rhythm of sun and stars, but for a shift worker, those lines often blur. Working 12-hour stretches in the lab means my relationship with daylight is complicated. In the winter months, I often head into a shift in the dark and emerge long after the sun has tucked itself away. It’s a strange, liminal existence—living in the gaps while the rest of the world is awake. I wrote this haiku to capture that heavy, quiet fatigue of the "in-between" There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes with the night shift, a "half-sleeped shadow" where you’re physically present but your internal clock is searching for a sun it can't find. But as the weeks progress, I’m looking toward the threshold. "Spring waits at the door" is my reminder that the cycle is turning. I’m ready for the mornings where the sun beats me to the car, and the evenings where the light ling...

Wet stone and muddy Hours of relentless downpour  Tiredness taken it's toll The rain hasn’t really stopped for two days. Not showers, just a constant presence — wet stone, muddy paths, cold air that settles in and stays. I’m still fighting off a cold, and the last two shifts have been long ones. Twelve hours on, twice in a row. Sleep has come in short stretches — three hours one night, five and a half the next — just enough to function, not enough to feel restored. By the end of today, it all felt cumulative. The damp, the cold, the tiredness, the way the body keeps count even when you try not to. This haiku came at the close of the day, written from that place where you’re still upright, still moving, but feeling the weight of everything that’s passed through.

Black skies overhead Peaceful dreams, restless nightmares A winter cold holds Working nights has a way of blurring edges. Sleep comes in fragments, dreams don’t always agree on what they want to be. This week, a winter cold settled in too — the kind that doesn’t knock you flat, just lingers. Heavy head, restless body, warmth that never quite reaches where it’s needed. Lying there, listening to the dark, aware of the sky pressing down. Some nights are peaceful. Some aren’t. Most are a mixture of both. This haiku came out of that space — between rest and unrest, between waking and dreaming — held in place by the season.

First try.... Wish me luck Cold winter morning Birrds still sleep in bare branches How I long for home