Tag: nature
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The lost Botanical Garden of Siena
If you’re thinking, hmmm that photo above doesn’t look like a garden, you are quite right. But when we went searching for the Sienna Botanical Gardens on a recent trip this is where the map took us. There was a patch of grass outside that didn’t look exactly botanical so we soon gave up. (The…
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Creative writing exercise, week 4 – writing your own instructions
The late great Toni Morrison famously said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” I like this advice on many levels, but mainly because it deals with the idea that when we are writing, we are also listening to ourselves. Perhaps one…
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Silence in the nature reserve
And a happy new year to you all! I think it’s still all right to say that, but this has been my theme recently… just a little too late! We spent the weekend after the new year in the middle of silence. It was beautiful. I’d been wanting to stay at the Elmley Nature Reserve…
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Poor Susan and the sounds of the city
This week I was lucky enough to go on a guided walk around the city of London with Rosie from Dotmaker Tours. She was concentrating particularly on the sounds of the city – we walked without talking, just listening (almost too intense, was the verdict), we talked how the city would sound in the future…
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A visit to The Library of the Birds of London
The complete joy of hearing birdsong again is making up for a stop-start spring this year. And thinking about birds, I had a joyful visit to the Whitechapel Gallery in London last week, mostly to visit the giant aviary created by American artist, Mark Dion. Only four visitors at a time are allowed in the…
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The Road Not Taken
One summer about five years ago, the council changed the layout of paths in my local park. Perhaps cowed by the fact that they had been so properly laid out and surfaced, we kept to the new paths and changed our normal routes through to town. All of us that is but the daffodils who…