Moving on

Tuesday was a brilliant, blue-sky day; I walked the dog in warm sunshine on Crickley Hill almost deafened by birdsong, with the Romantic poets reeling through my mind. But that hint of spring seems to have been more than a little premature and this morning's walk was back in more usual garb - thermals, scarf and fleece! At least it's lighter in the mornings and for longer in the afternoons, though, and the snowdrops and crocuses are much in evidence, so it can't be that much longer ...

And there have been some stimulating events this week to move the mind on too. Under the auspices of Cheltenham Poetry Society, Sharon Larkin is running a twelve month "Kickstart" poetry course, based on Jo Bell's book "52. Write A Poem A Week. Start Now. Keep Going" (Nine Arches Press). Tuesday evening saw thirteen of us at this month's workshop, reading a wide variety of work based on the prompts from the early chapters - an interesting session. Then last night Smokey Joes coffee bar hosted "Flashers Club", the quarterly event recently begun by Alex Clark for writers of flash fiction. Headlined by Tyler Keevil who runs the undergraduate creative writing programme at the University of Gloucestershire, eight other contributions came from debut as well as seasoned "flashers". Photos and brief biographies of the participants will be on the club blog if you're interested - www.flashersclub.wordpress.com

An advance invitation - if you're free at 7.30pm on Friday February 24th, do join us at New Bohemians at deepspace arts centre, Hamilton Street, Charlton Kings. A few days before St. David's Day, the evening will celebrate "Voices From Wales" with Sharon Larkin, Vicki Hampton, Adam Magee and Aled Thomas. I shall be opening the second half of the evening for the open mic session. Tickets are £6.50 on the door and include interval refreshments (Welsh themed of course!). Do hope to see you there.

Back in harness

A dull and damp end to January but I'm on cloud nine here - my fracture is healing well, I've started physiotherapy and I've now got two free hands to do things with! I shall be very careful on that step in future ....

Whilst the practicalities such as housework and cooking have got more than a little out of hand over recent weeks, I've rejoiced in the opportunity to catch up on a lot of reading - some for research purposes but a lot simply for enjoyment. I've been trying some new authors (new to me, that is) as well as going back to old favourites. "Cousins" by Sally Vickers I really enjoyed but the one that kept me reading well into the night was "The Improbability Of Love" by Hannah Rothschild. Multi-layered, with a huge cast of characters - each beautifully drawn - it's exuberant, witty and says a lot that is deeply meaningful but with the lightest of touches. Following the life story of a great work of art through four hundred years of  romance, intrigue, plunder, underhand dealing, you-name-it-the-painting-has-been-subjected-to-it, you can't fail to realise the depth of the author's knowledge as well as her skill in writing about it. If you haven't read it, do try to do so - it was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and would certainly have been my winning choice.

The Year Of Legend

My daughter and I have just booked to go to the Celtic Folk Festival being held in March in Porthcawl and I was very interested to see that 2017 has been designated the "Year of Legend" in Wales. No doubt a carefully thought-out marketing ploy on the part of the Welsh Tourist Board, but a highly appropriate one nonetheless. I can't think of anywhere else with so many, or such fascinating, myths and legends, from many of the Arthurian tales to the magical stories in the Mabinogion. One of my favourites is about Idris, the giant warrior poet who sits on his chair - the mountain Cadair Idris - to contemplate the heavens. Any mortal spending the night on his mountain needs to be brave or foolhardy - they will wake from sleep either a lunatic or a poet too!

Last spring I began a series of poems based on Celtic legends but other work got the better of me and the poems went on hold. They've come to the top of the to-do list again though, as soon as my big project is finished, and I'm really looking forward to revisiting all the stories - and hopefully their settings too, as I want to illustrate the poems with relevant photos. Roll on the spring, when I shall hopefully have the time, and some better weather, in which to do so!

Lake above Llandecwyn -
Excalibur's final resting place?

Steaming ahead

Well, take myself in hand I did, and last week was a highly productive one on the writing front. It could have been even more so if I was adept at typing left handed, but in the current situation I'm not complaining! I'm well on the way now to completing the first draft of the family chronicles and hopeful that my newly-set target (mid March) will be achievable. Whilst I need to maintain a definite focus to make sure of that, at the back of my mind and on the pages of my notebook a couple of other potential projects are taking form, spin-offs from the main thrust of the family story.  I'm certainly not the type who can write two or more works simultaneously, but it's good to have some tentative follow-up plans.

One highlight of last week was an evening spent at Buzzwords listening to R. V. Bailey and June Hall reading their poetry. I wrote about the two of them a year or so ago now after hearing them read in Swindon from "The Book Of Love And Loss" which they had edited. Again I really enjoyed hearing them both, but I was especially struck this time by June's work; she writes so movingly about the triumphs and tragedies of life, about such intimate events as stillbirth and sickness, so amusingly about birthdays, growing up, growing old, even the frustrations of using disability aids. If you're not familiar with her work, do look it up, it's well worth the effort.

Positive thinking!

Was it only a couple of weeks ago I was writing about hopefulness and the power of positive thinking?! I certainly need to take myself in hand here - I've been thoroughly fed up and achieving very little over the past week as it's become obvious that it's going to be a protracted business recovering from this shoulder injury. But looking through the diary this morning there seems to be so much to look forward to on the poetry and writing scene and tomorrow at Catchword we'll be discussing the objectives we've set ourselves for the coming three months - a definite motivator! I can't turn up empty handed ... so it's upwards and onwards.

And even this miserable winter weather lets up occasionally; I've always loved winter evening skies and there have been some stunningly inspirational ones recently ....

2016 - going out with a bang ....

... literally! In a hurry yesterday morning I fell down a step in the garden that I'd forgotten we've got and landed up in a mess on some unbelievably hard concrete. We spent an interesting afternoon at the local community hospital (knowing that the main Accident Department twenty odd miles away was full to overflowing); the staff were wonderful - caring and very thorough. Somehow I have landed up with an unusual fracture of my right scapula - an injury more commonly seen if you come off a motorbike at 70mph or get rolled on by a car!

It's quickly become apparent that I'm not an accomplished typist with one finger on my left hand! This rather cocks up my writing plans for the next few weeks - I think my resolutions for the New Year may need to be amended accordingly this evening.

A Hopeful Christmas

As always it seems, Christmas news from around the world is far from what we
would wish. Destruction, fear and famine, anxiety for the future and sadness about the past - it's often hard to find any real "Christmas spirit". But two years ago, at a very difficult point in my father-in-law's life, a Quaker friend, an ex-student of his, sent in his Christmas card a bookmark with a Seamus Heaney quote. Since my father-in-law's death I have kept it on my desk and it's become a philosophy that I try to live by. Call it faith, call it the power of positive thinking, but I firmly believe that we have to look to the future with optimism that our actions can materially alter things, that we can make a difference in our own individual worlds.

Wherever you are, however this season finds you,

I wish you a hopeful Christmas and a peaceful 2017.