Wednesday 1st July 2026
White Poppies.
Yesterday, leaving our sleepy shire for Southampton Hospital, we followed familiar rural roads that ribbon through a patchwork of pasture, crops and woodland.
Turning a familiar bend, we were met by an unfamiliar sight: a billowing field of white poppies, like low-anchored cloud beneath a glowering, storm-grey sky.
With no time to stop, we passed briefly by, promising ourselves we would pause amongst the poppies on our journey home. Indeed, we passed not just one such field, but two: acres upon acres of ballerina flowers dancing in the breeze, temptingly just out of reach, only just in sight.
Of course, I hadn’t taken into consideration that by the time we journeyed home I would have had drops in both eyes, dilating my pupils to enable the retinal scans necessary to monitor my eye health. And I had certainly underestimated how much the whole process would rouse my migraine monster—a grumpy beast of a headache at the best of times, now hunkered down in my head and making its presence very much felt.
However, I was determined that we should stop anyway.
Despite the fact that I couldn’t see clearly, that my head felt like the storm clouds gathering above, and that my low blood glucose alarm was, well, alarming, I stood amongst those white poppies, panning my camera phone across the scene and breathed in the calm.
The calm that, in defiance of the stormy sky and the traffic hurrying past, the flowers seemed to breathe into the air.
Their delicate petals touched the breeze ever so softly, whilst their seed heads stood tall—fairy-queen green chalices, cupped with life, seeds ripening, readying themselves to reset.
In that moment, I felt reset too.
Not recovered.
Such a thing would be untrue.
But recalibrated.
The day was no longer simply about a hospital appointment.
It had become a pilgrimage through a field of white poppies.
The fact that the storm clouds had continued to gather all day did nothing to diminish their beauty.
Somehow, the darkening sky seemed only to gather that beautiful tide more closely to itself, before letting it lap gently over my senses like the sea washing around a beachcomber’s feet.
