Mammogram

Within the remit of the NHS breast screening programme, women over 50 and under 70 who are registered with a GP are called for a mammogram every three years. 

The first invitation arrives between the 50th and 53rd birthdays. My invitation arrived a couple of weeks ago and I went along today for the procedure which was straightforward and completely painless, I didn't even find it particularly uncomfortable. Going to the dentist's - for a check-up (!) is far worse in my opinion. I'll receive the results within two weeks and I hope it'll be a straightforward all-clear. 

A number of women poets have written about their life-changing experiences of breast cancer. Here's one from Helen Farish, whose poems I find moving and very powerful.  

Biopsy

I'm running away with my breasts

to Barcelona, the Canaries.

They've a fancy for some seafront life,

fishermen, local wine.

I'm leaving no more of them at the hospital.

I understand the lump now,

how the cells got together

in a crescent like a young moon,

a smooth-sea boat, a hammock.

All these symbols of longing:

if I had taken notice

they would not have taken shape.

Helen Farish

Intimates

In Lakeland in Spirit

So. 4th September and no swim.

I am disappointed and also, in truth, relieved. I don't feel in peak fitness (ha ha). What I mean is that, although the physical act of swimming a mile would have been feasible for me, I didn't feel mentally prepared for the event. Again, if I'd had to do it, I'd have been able to, but I'm glad to have been let off the hook. The organisers will be in touch before Tuesday with some options which are likely to include: an alternative date for Windermere in the next couple of weeks, transfer of place to the Great Swim in Salford Docks (hmm...that  just doesn't seem to have the same ring as Windermere somehow...), transfer of fee to next year's swim, refund of fee. 

Not sure yet which of those I'd go for. 

This week I've been reading Intimates by Helen Farish. This book won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2005. She had a residency in Grasmere and lectures on the creative writing course at the University of Lancaster. I love the direct style of her poems which are also intriguing and somehow mysterious. I like poems which manage to combine those elements. Here's a poem from the collection which puts us in the Lake District, to mark the day.

Brathay

I love to see the symbols on the map -

the cross, the less-than-4-metres-wide road,

the pub (named even). And I love

to see us as symbols and everything 

we saw: the two men

chess-playing at Skelwith Fold

in back-porch sunshine, mark it

with T for tranquillity. Put a P

in the graveyard for picnic (teabread,

coffee). An A just there on the verge

for sapling (ash) - how much growth

that summer? And the bend in the road

a double S for smiles (the greengold

light, the veneer of wood-water,

the tilt). And a capital J for summer

(joy), and a D for don't

(let this end), and a G and T left behind

at the pub (empty) and a capital U

for God saying I and the entire

universe wish this walk well.

By the Brathay and the underwater

bubbles that began us, an M

for completion by moonlight.

And all over, write, in full:

The Dazzle of this World.

Helen Farish

Intimates (Jonathan Cape, 2005)