Keats – A Winchester Walk in The Poet’s Footsteps... A Modern, More Stressful Approach
Previously published in Only In Winchester - edited by Glenn Fosbraey
It’s Monday morning, seven o’clock and as usual, I’m running late. Already, I’m stressing about how to fit everything that needs to be done into the day ahead. I’m cross with myself too. I was lazy and didn’t whizz through the ironing pile at the weekend, as I should have done. Now, I am paying the price; I’ve no clean trousers to wear. I resort to inspecting the lower leg of the pair I wore on Sunday to walk in, but they’re no use, they’re too splattered with mud. So, it is with great reluctance I yank on one of the three skirts I own, and ram my feet, now clad in aubergine tights, into the restrictive confines of my black pumps (normally reserved for funerals and interviews).
On a day like today, when I am close to losing the plot so early in the morning, I decide my heeled boots would not be practical and stick with boring, but safe. Particularly as last night we were emailed, suggesting we bring a camera to our Media Lecture and imagining that we may be wandering around the campus to take photographs, I know I will regret it if I wear the heels.
After more charging about, grabbing at bits and pieces that as a mature student I really should have packed in my bag the night before in an organized fashion, I finally make it to the car. Where I realize that I’ve forgotten to bring my gloves, and that it’s too late to retrieve them. A decision I will later regret. But clueless to the adventure ahead of me, and promising myself that I will sort the ironing pile tonight, I screech along the A34 towards Winchester, and if I’m lucky straight in to one of the increasingly limited parking spaces.
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