WRITING INSPIRED BY LANDSCAPE

    The theme for this particular section of the session was ‘cutting something out’.   For no reason that I can fathom, the first thing that came into my mind was a clear memory of my Dad using his walking stick to hack away at long strands of bramble which were encroaching onto public footpaths.   I suppose really it is more of ‘cutting back’ than ‘cutting out’, but what’s a bit of semantics among friends?   Thinking about it now, I should have just supplied my Dad with a pair of secateurs – or perhaps that would not have been so much fun! Cutting Back the Bramble   Thwack! Out struck the cane, the staff, the walking stick with the curved handle. My father’s big hand securely grasping the base of the curve. Thwack, thwack. Take that. Cut it back, thwack it back. Thwack the woody stem once, twice, thrice Until it yields. Cut, thwack, cut it back, Clear the path. Make way for walkers, For pushchairs, For bikes. Cut back t...

  Roger is a great collector of things said and has curated a collection of snippets of conversation - performed by Roger and Simone on January 21st and The Fenscapers first public reading on January 21st, 2022. We've had a nice time And we didn' ‎ t talk about it all day But one’s on guard the whole time. As I was yesterday! When they first made a fuss about it, you used to do it, I know you did! ​ I'm legally retired now. They say that soon retirement will last for infinity. ​ When are you going on holiday? Thursday – we’re going the day before, as the first fright(sic) is early Friday. She’s gone home for Ramadan So she doesn’t have to starve for so long each day. I can have as ​ m ​ uch fun at home as going there by train. You know my husband Mike, don’t you? He’s got big hands too!’ I didn’t say anything, but……..!! You remember what happened. He drowned in Dublin Bay! But can you drown in Dublin Bay? Well, if you can drown in a bath, I'm sure you can! I'm ...

  A bright, clear night; the moon rides high. Thin clouds racing past the shining disk which scans the landscape with pale intensity. Passing over limestone country, the Hanglands are below. Part of John Clare’s lost Heath; now an oasis in an arable land. Clare, versing in his head, walked from Helpston to be alone in this green space. Escaping from villagers who thought him strange - a lunatic!? Tonight, the moon tracks a car following the road Clare took one hundred and fifty years before. Head lights challenging the moon’s gaze; it stops by the path to the Heath, No longer a green lane; one hedge grubbed out to extend the crop. The moon lights on two people emerging from the car, escaping from a noisy party. Like Clare - they too want to be alone. Nearby, a little owl picks up beetles fallen from an overhanging oak, a badger scratches and a deer barks. The two young people thrill at the night sounds. Then, still listening, hand in hand, they quietly tak...

  My head is filled with the deafening roar of shingle being dragged back’n’forth, helpless and willing, in the raging surf slapping and sliding towards my feet. And as the pull of the deep contracts, I could sink into the glistening and dazzling sparkles of the thousand shiny black and opal agates.  But while I’m transfixed on the rolling and crashing, Buster has locked his eyes onto something moving, a dark shadow lurching through the waves, breaking the surface of the water only some thirty feet away. Smooth and proud and powerful.  It disappears and we are left searching the white, greens and turquoise blues of the waves. Buster is barking, noiseless in an even louder chorus of chattering shingle, his eyes have seen it before mine. And there it is. A sheen of grey flashes in the sunlight and then a playful flip of a darker tell-tale tail. A humpback whale. He’s inviting us, teasing us and we are such easy prey. I follow Buster and break into a run along the water’s ed...

  God peered over their glasses. ‘Can I have a word please?’ Francis had known there would be repercussions. He swallowed the rising feeling of trepidation. But hadn't God delegated his authority – left the entire matter in Francis hands? It was all very well observing things from afar in Paradise. It was also all very well having 800 years of experience and the title of Patron Saint of Ecology and Animals but that didn't prepare anyone for a visit to Earth.   Glasgow 2021 to be precise.   Taking on the climate crisis that could end the world   - with a bunch of overworked, tired world leaders reeling from the shock of COVID, hosted in the country that voted for BREXIT to boot ( although Scots might disagree). God just hadn't realised the enormity of the task they'd assigned to him. Francis tightened the rope around his waist and hitched up his habit - mentally preparing himself   for God 's disappointment and the inevitable dressing down. He silent...

  Rain splatters on barren morning-chilled hillside, washing the bodies of spent fireflies down gullies towards the sea, where, joyously barking, Apollo, released from the taverna, snuffles and digs in the sand.   Doves leave cotes, landing in pine trees to snake their heads with pleasure, and watch, as the dog runs into the shallows, creating ripples that spread into the bay and lap against the rocks, who play hide and seek with the dancing waves.   Below, sea anemones cling, waving and tasting the water for food, in the eddies stirred by the sand eels, who retreat into burrows as a squid pulses through the water, towards the dolphins playing at the edge of the bay.   I stand silently on a wind-stirred headland, where the four o'clock flowers bloom, knowing that tonight, once again, the fireflies will dance in the dark. Poem by Jaqui Fairfax Image by SacreBleu on Unsplash

  Late November leading into early December the air around us seemed to have something in it, a new presence. The air was no longer invisible. Particles coated in the thinnest of gossamer sheaths of cold, gathered and created this shimmering grey white blanket of fog floating, or rather hanging.. not in the air, it filled the air, it was the air.  Still. No wind. Only me moving through freezing water all around me. Stroking my eyes, my cheeks, even my teeth. Tiny beads and droplets find resting places on my beard. There’s cold creeping in between the layers of my clothing with every step, with every move. And there’s a taste. Faint, delicate and only just detectable on the tongue. But it’s there, tantalising and teasing. Then it hits with the memory of frozen lakes high up in the mountains, high up in the silence of the sky, high up so the ice and cold clashes with the bright dazzling light of the sun that looks as if it could be touched. It’s as if the cold has carried this f...

  If inadequately tied, fixed, fastened or pinned Everything becomes airborne, flails, flaps, and thrashes. Nascent leaves released like confetti whirl along the Bay road, Chase the broken heads of long-stemmed narcissus   That surrender their honey scents to the persistent gale.   My sister and I, at breakfast in a Jersey hotel, Feel the waves thud against the sea wall, then overtop and flood. The spray shimmers with salt and milky froth laced with iodine. We watch, half in dread, half in helpless laughter, As Herring gulls, flung towards the glass, somehow lift and veer.    Barbara Grafton Wind challenge   Image: Montage by Barbara Grafton using Herring gull photograph by Rob Hille via Wikimedia

By (Anonymous, for Ferrante Imperato) - http://www.ausgepackt.uni-erlangen.de/presse/download/index.shtml, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9172105 In my study there are many favourite items. Books I have treasured since childhood stand cover to cover with brand new editions, some I have still yet to read, for if I have to acknowledge just one vice, (and I have several) I am a self-confessed book junkie. The mere glimpse of a title leads my mind down all sorts of imaginary pathways, new ideas, new journeys, greater understanding of a subject or merely escapist tales of fantasy. The anticipatory thought of opening a new book and inhaling the smell of fresh print, and the touch of pristine pages, as yet unturned, adds a whole new sensory and tactile dimension to the book reading exercise that online text can never convey. Second-hand books also have their own unique persona. Perhaps stored in slightly damp surroundings at the rear of an old book shop racke...

  I was walking Akerman Street, the Mow Fen of Litelport fame, sited in the Domesday Book, deep in thought about how the ground beneath my feet belongs to no-one. That the infinite pleasure of seeing into the forever is to me, a gift. In those moments my world became a fine place to be. I know much of this landscape but have never written how I feel when I’m alone under the artist’s sky, in the poet’s dreamscape. Easterly blasts of wind took my breath away and deafened my thoughts so that I could no longer hear myself breathe, feel only fear building up in my limbs so that they were heavy and lifeless; the gale thrust me backwards dragging me off my feet as though claiming it for the soil. I am small, insignificant, a strange visitor to this place. But I could not, would not turn back. I quicken my pace to the hypnotic rhythm of leather on gravel. My shadow ahead, the one I would never ensnare alerted me to longer shadows catching up behind. I had heard about the black dog of t...

  One of my favourite possessions is a basic utilitarian object: a sixty year-old glazed stoneware rubber tapping cup. When Dad gave it to me a few years ago, I was delighted. Others might see it best used as drainage in plant pots. But to me it is a remarkable object: aesthetically pleasing, a reminder of my childhood, and an object that speaks resoundingly of colonial power and the rise and fall of a lucrative industry that changed an entire country. So much significance for such a modest object!   Dad acquired the cup in Singapore where he was posted by the RAF from 1959 to 1962 to develop aerial reconnaissance photographs towards the end of the Communist insurgency of 1948 to 1961. This was the happiest time in my parents’ marriage. A third daughter and a son were added to our existing family of four, and we enjoyed all that RAF life offered. As often as he could, Dad would take us into the countryside to see wildlife and the local people going about their lives. Fam...

  This Christmas morning In the darkness I lit a candle And as I watched, The flame rise, take hold And dance, I felt hope Climb higher in my heart.   A single light, It seemed so small And yet, Penetrating the gloom It beamed, With purpose Transforming all around, And pierced my soul.   With half-closed eyes Laser streaks of light Reached out in all directions, dog barking in edging night, lone birdsong searching for the dawn, as Creation greets the light spreading a contagion of hope.   Paul Middleton      Image by David Monje    

  On this day 58 years ago the hardest winter in living memory set in and continued until March. Icy blizzards created a complete white out and temperatures barely, if ever, rose above freezing. In those days, blizzards failed to close schools, whereas now the merest flurry of snow grinds the nation to a halt.   To me, it seemed that life carried on as usual, despite artic conditions and deep snow drifts. My dad and mum still went to work at their hairdressing salon in Chesterton, passing other vehicles abandoned for weeks by the side of the road, conked out through engine failures, or stuck in drifts. There was however, one near miss tragedy when my sister and I were traveling with mum and dad along the frozen A10 approaching Milton, and I heard dad say, “Look at that idiot trying to overtake in these conditions.”   Then mum cried out, “He’s going to hit us.” I became aware of a dark transit van skidding broadside from the opposite carriageway across the centre of ...