Friday 28 September 2018

Readings in the rain

After a busy and at times rather difficult week following a family bereavement, I was really looking forward to the Ways to Peace Festival at Tintern Abbey at the weekend. And the event itself didn't disappoint - though the weather certainly did! If you know the Abbey ruins - where, as the custodian put it, "the sky is our roof" - you'll understand why Saturday's torrential rain made for a less than ideal setting for readings and meditations.

Friday evening, however, which started the Festival off with a "music for peace" event, saw a lovely sunset and a dramatic night sky. It was tremendously atmospheric sitting in the nave listening to the sublime music of Sir Karl Jenkins "The Armed Man" sung by Cor Caerdydd and the contributions of two quite magical women on harp and violin.

And at the Saturday event, despite the awful wind and downpours, it was very inspiring and very moving to hear the many ways in which local writers - their ages ranging from 13 to well into the 90s - had interpreted the "Ways to Peace" theme. Peace between nations, peace with the environment, inner peace - poems and prose reflections took us to many places and many times. A young woman reader, a Palestinian refugee who had grown up in camps in Syria, knew only too well the effects of strife. Her peace poems in particular moved me to tears; both she and they have stayed with me and will stay with me for a long while yet.



Saturday 15 September 2018

Over the hills and far away ...


A very busy couple of weeks with little time for writing - but quite a bit for thinking and planning. At the beginning of the month I had a few days walking the next stretch of the Wales Coastal Path - this time from Swansea to Llangennith, around the fabulous Gower coastline. The weather was kind to us and we tramped over clifftops, across beaches, through woods and farmland in warm sunshine; we've now completed 156 miles of the 882 total - so there's only another 726 to go! Should keep us usefully occupied for the rest of our retirement ...

But I've always found walking immensely liberating and inspiring; getting into a steady rhythm seems to simultaneously focus my mind and to free it. So I came back with plenty of ideas and enthusiasm. And being away also gave me some time to catch up on a pile of reading I've had mounting for a while. The message on Octavo's Bookshop wall in Cardiff when I popped in there seemed particularly apt -


Coming back brought the inevitable onslaught of daily life with a vengeance but also ushered in a few welcome activities, including the resumption of our Women For Woman poetry sessions in Hereford and a fascinating lunchtime talk in Penarth by the wonderful Owen Sheers about his poetry films Pink Mist, Green Hollow and To Provide All People. My guest on Thursday morning's NHSound programme proved very interesting too - the Caldicot writer Guy Farrish. If you haven't come across "Wolf!", his modern take on the old fairy tale about the three little pigs, do get hold of a copy - it's available on Amazon and makes for very entertaining (and, in the present climate, very pertinent) reading.