Touch wood, I don’t have to worry about being superstitious.

I mean, most of that stuff is just common sense isn’t it? You wouldn’t walk under a ladder if there’s someone up it with a bucket of something sloshable, would you? And why would you need an umbrella open in the house unless you had a very leaky roof? As for putting shoes – new or otherwise – on the table, who would do that?

We have a black cat in our house; I’m not sure if she is lucky or not. Depending on which side of the Atlantic you live, you might have different ideas about omens attached to black cats in your path. When ours get under my feet (she has a thing about cheese and can stir from a sound slumber three rooms away at the sound of the grater), I’m not sure which one of us is the luckiest. Me for not quite breaking my neck as I trip over her, or her for not quite getting trampled underfoot?

Incidentally, I have long been a cat ‘owner’ and thereby have got through many cat names, although I have a file on my laptop with more than 50 kitty names for future use. This black cat is called Ashley because, back when she was a kitten 12 years ago, she liked to chase balls. Football, black, Cole, Ashley – get it? Cheryl’s ex, back in the day.

Anyway, as I’ve already said, I’m not superstitious. Except that perhaps I’d like to be this week.

Some people think things come in threes and I’ve had two strokes of good luck in the past couple of days, so I’d quite like to believe there might be another, just around the corner. My good news is that I’ve (finally!) had a poem accepted for publication in the next Skylight 47 magazine – and I’ve been selected for a place on the Autumn Poetry Masterclass with Gillian Clarke and Maura Dooley in the Welsh Writers’ Centre at Tŷ Newydd. I had such a good time there in the Spring that I gushed all over this blog with the news. I may yet get to go the same way.

Meanwhile, I’m out looking for magpies. Two for joy, of course. The rest can keep away, thank you.