Category: 2016
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We wrote a poem on a leaf…
I’m just back from a glorious weekend teaching creative writing with Anna Robertshaw from Freestyle Yoga Project, who was teaching the yoga. Yoga and writing proved a perfect combination, or maybe that was the group who came. Or even the venue, glorious Tilton House, just up the road from the Bloomsbury set’s famous Charleston Farmhouse on…
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Listen, says the labyrinth
This is a post in which I not only review a book about labyrinths but show you how to draw one…. so I should issue a little warning – it’s completely addictive. Like counting syllables in haiku, once you’ve done one, your fingers will be constantly itching to circle round and round again. I’ve just started back working on campus…
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On a day so beautiful even the trees danced…
We had a picnic lunch on a log under this tree today, and I looked up to see the branches swaying in the wind, just as if they were dancing, lifting up their skirts like teasing can-can dancers, so lightly I could almost hear them laughing. And then when we got home, I realised I…
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Come and write with me…
Come and indulge your senses with a Herbal Infused Poetry Workshop at the beautiful Physic Garden at Westgate Gardens, Canterbury Saturday 24th September – 11-1pm Costs £4 (including tea and cake) How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers? Andrew Marvell I’m running a workshop in Canterbury designed around…
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Narcissus Garden – a post especially for Sarahs
On a recent visit to Stockholm, we caught an exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s work, and fell in love particularly with Narcissus Garden. What’s not to love? Look at all those me’s! It was originally created in 1966 for the Venice Biennale, and consisted of 1,500 of these silver balls on the lawn outside the Italian…
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Stairway to heaven….
We found the real stairway to heaven recently… and then the day after we climbed it, we read about the court case Led Zeppelin were fighting over the song’s origins. So strange when that happens. And so today, as the court has decided in the band’s favour, I thought I would post about the beautiful valley in mid Wales…
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Luckily birds don’t know they are tweeting…
… because they might stop at 140 characters then. And that would be far too short. Turn your volume up and listen…. This clip above was taken yesterday at the RSPB Ynys–hir nature reserve in Wales. I was standing there trying to think how I could describe the beauty of the birdsong. And then I thought I…
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A garden girl in Paris…
(with apologies to John Denver) Three nights in Paris, bucket loads of rain, cafes, people watching, a bit of shopping, cake eating and champagne drinking too. But also galleries. Lots of them, and I got interested in the gardens attached. How artists, even in the middle of a city, need space. Here are three of them……
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Garden notes 1
They are like three sisters, my apple trees, holding each other, spreading blossom like secrets, and as I sit here writing, a petal falls on my page as if they know I am talking about them. And, shhh, they like it.
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Tulips and Tortoises
It’s joyful tulip time, tumbling over each other as they draw every little bit of attention in the room to themselves and no wonder they do what they want. These are the kings of spring flowers, and once they would have sucked up a bank balance as easily as they drink every drop of…
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An ode to Allotmenteers
Hello allotment, it feels like it’s been a long time… What’s that? Oh right, yes it has. But hurrah, it’s gardening time again. And look at these potatoes in the allotment shop waving at us. Pick me, pick me… So here’s a poem to all of us, peering at our allotments at this time of…