The year moves on

 I've just come in from my first real spring evening walk of the year. The birdsong was almost deafening, the light on the fields so atmospheric, the sun slipping down behind the hills under pink and grey clouds  just stunning. I don't doubt that by the weekend we'll be seeing more rain and probably more chill winds, but to have some respite after the dreary winter months - with the promise of more to come - seems to have put a smile on people's faces and a spring in their step.

March proved a much busier month than planned but a very interesting one nonetheless. Three workshops, an author's event, a talk to a local women's group on Digging Up The Family - and my first presentation to a group in Welsh! I lost a bit of sleep over that one I must say, but actually enjoyed it when it came to it. And staying with the Welsh - I've just had a poem in Welsh accepted for publication in a book by Carreg Gwalch, a very prestigious publisher here in Wales - a definite first there!!

April looks to be a more home based month, which I'm looking forward to. My pilgrimage project has been retrieved from the back burner where it had sat for several months over the winter. The research for that and the actual mini-pilgrimages are largely completed, so now there are mounds of notes, photographs, maps etc. waiting for transformation into a readable narrative. Of course the nice thing about writing memoir is the reliving of experiences as you relate them - the "savouring of them twice", to paraphrase Laurie Lee. And, challenging though some of those experiences on this project have been, they've all been enjoyable - so hopefully the writing up will be too.

Launched at last!

                                       

They say that all things come to those who wait - well occasionally we have to wait a little longer than we'd planned! But after a lengthy gestation and a long delivery, Writing A Life was eventually launched into the world on Valentine's Day. The staff at Monmouth library were as welcoming as ever and the sun deigned to come out to celebrate the occasion with us. My thanks go especially to Lydia Dowding, library manager, and to my five contributors, Marie Griffiths, Jennifer Harland, Tony O'Hare, Coleen Sadler and Grace Walsh, attendees at workshops I'd run who allowed me to share some of their writing in the text. It was lovely to have them taking part in the launch, which closed with Tony's rendition of his song Chips on the Mountain (Sglodion ar y Mynydd). So many folk songs over the centuries have evolved from life stories  - just one of the many and varied ways in which we can document lives and times, our own, our family's and other people's.

Thanks for the welcome - and the welcome back

A busy start to the New Year. I was delighted to be invited to speak to the First Friday group at Cwtsh Community and Arts Centre in Newport the week before last about Digging up the Family - especially as much of the action in that book took place within a stone's throw of the Centre, albeit a very long time ago! The group extended a warm welcome on a very cold night, and I really enjoyed meeting so many interesting people in such a pleasant venue. It was my first visit to Cwtsh (previously a small branch library) but it won't be my last. I'm hoping to run some workshops there later in the year.

Talking about an
aunt's Cub Mistress 
warrant signed by
Baden Powell himself

And I had another lovely welcome - or rather welcome back - at Women Aloud in Cheltenham yesterday. Over the past couple of years I've really missed the women's group that nurtured my poetry when I first set out on that path; it was wonderful to be back yesterday with old friends - and supportive critics! Some writers, I know, find writing groups unhelpful, but to me they're an integral part of a writing life and I've valued the ones to which I've belonged enormously. So, despite the geographical challenges now, I'm very happy indeed to return to the fold!