I recently started reading Terry Pratchett's latest book 'Raising Steam', with a slightly heavy heart. Not because I didn't think I'd enjoy it, I knew I would, but because each new book brings us a bit closer to the time where there will be no more new books. He has a very rare form of... Continue Reading →
Poetry – Still
If I breathe everything will break. I capture the moment through half closed lashes. The grass, neat as plastic, trimmed by endless sheep. The azure ozone dusted with clouds topped by a golden globe. A flotilla of geese wafts across the sunglass tinted water. Green spires stretch higher and higher till my eyes go numb.... Continue Reading →
Books That Get Under Our Skin – Literary Tattoos
The classic horror aficionados amongst you will recognise the quote above from Bram Stoker's "Dracula". The tattoo and the arm it sits on belong to my friend Kasi. This is her favourite line from her favourite book, and it's now permanently embossed on her skin. Literary tattoos are hugely popular. There are plenty of websites... Continue Reading →
Prose – Mistress of the Sea – part 2
He stepped back. Niamh was left with her boat in the middle of a ring of ghostly faces. ‘Finally you are here.’ The voice was cold and bottomless, hissing and crashing from everywhere at once. 'Who are you?’ said Niamh. ‘I have too many names to count but I am the greatest of all forces... Continue Reading →
Prose – Mistress of the Sea – part 1
The last thing Niamh remembered was drowning, so it came as a surprise when she woke up. At first she thought she was dreaming. The air had that strange grey sense of a dream. Or being underwater. She held up her hand in front of her and moved it from side to side. Her skin... Continue Reading →
New Year, New Writing Resolutions – How to Avoid Failure
I'm a little late here, but I want to just talk about New Year’s Resolutions. We make ‘em, we break 'em – that’s true for me and I expect it’s true for a lot of other people as well. Every year we make ourselves all sorts of promises – to loose weight, get fitter, get... Continue Reading →
Poetry – A Teacher’s Lament at Christmas
This year it is our turn to do the Nativity, And everyone is slack, We have rehearsed for two weeks now, So I’m not going to take all the flack. Miss Twit, as I call her, is on the piano, Waving her arms like a bird, Her ‘arrangement’ of Holly and Ivy Is nothing less... Continue Reading →
Poetry – And then only the women remained
The men had faced the hooded clock and fallen first. Dusty or sudden, they went, and then only the women remained. They swept up the mess, as they had been taught, tied on plastic caps, and gathered in quiet hordes. Grey and rinsed and wrinkled, with button eyes full of world domination, they planned in... Continue Reading →
Following Harry Potter – A Visit to Lacock Abbey
A while back I visited Lacock Abbey. Now yes it is well known as the place where William Talbot made the earliest known surviving example of a photographic negative in 1835 but more importantly, they filmed scenes from Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Half-Blood Prince there. There are also a number of... Continue Reading →
Poetry – Woodsmoke
It is on days like these, when the trees stand still and haggard, when the ground is brown fluttered I can think of no better place than this old Earth. The air bites and tingles, the grass thinned, as I stand in choking woodsmoke, inhaling the beauty. Wrapped tight and head bound, we wander through... Continue Reading →
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