WRITING INSPIRED BY LANDSCAPE

  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 ...

  Speaking to a neighbour recently, I mentioned the ghostly figure of a monk I’d seen crossing a road in the village when driving home at dusk some months ago. “ Oh,” she said, “ we’ve all seen him – we think he’s a monk who taught at the local school and was buried near here.” And this evening, I thought I saw him again as I headed towards my favourite contemplation spot – a five-barred gate overlooking a broad meadow and west towards the sun setting over the tree-lined river. Leaning on the gate, I looked to see if I could spot any deer or foxes on the jogging track mown around the meadow. As I prefer to be alone with my thoughts, I was perturbed to see someone, or something, across the other side of the meadow coming towards the gate. I couldn’t see clearly what it was because it was silhouetted by the setting sun. Two long ears waggled – could it be a donkey. I stepped to one side of the gate out of sight and looked through a straggly hedge to see what it was as it drew ne...

  The Fenscapers first public reading had to be held online due to Covid restrictions but was an online success.  Invited by Fascinating Fens to read texts and poetry as part of the launch of our wonderful audio collection.   Read about the event here and click on this  link  to watch the event on YouTube.  Please find the texts read during the evening below: A Walk Around My Garden  by Barbara Grafton " Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake and here is one of them " - Nancy Mitford Part-way down our garden lies a unique mass burial of eight cattle and six horses - adult, immature, neonatal and unborn - mostly arranged nose-to-tail. They were discovered in a ditch during the archaeological dig prior to the building of our house on the “high lands” of the fen. They have been radiocarbon dated to 40 to 230 AD, the very Late Iron Age to mid Roman period. It is speculated that their buri...

  Photo taken at Madeleine’s Patch near Warboys: Visit  facebook.com/madeleinespatch Download and listen to our walking podcast - stories, poetry, short texts, music and sound.  It is a beautyiful collection of writing inspired by the Fens. Written and recorded by the Fenscapers, music composed and played by Chris Ellis, edited and put together by our own wonderful Colin Stevens.  It is a thing of listening beauty - but don't take my word for it: Listen here!

  Two siblings race in monsoon rain up the path in a Singapore yard; No likelihood I’d lose, the eldest by two years.     Sticklebacks dart, tiny missiles secreted in Hampshire’s chalk streams; My chilled hands drip platinum drops. A vixen pounces into feathery pristine snow. Her flicker of flame Doused through thin ice in a sluggish flow.   On an Exmouth rock pool, my shadow obscures the surface glitter; Tiny crabs dance a fox-trot into seaweed cover. Just the rain, in all its moods, on a roof or window, is a fall into joy; Many hours can pass in a blissful trance. On the Ouse Washes, a hundred swans feed in their own reflections, Fragmentary glimpses of perfection. Blossom from cherry and crab-apple powder the pools at Giverny; Bound buds of narcissi sway in papery wraps. Heard only by fish, waterlilies break open with muffled detonations; Above heart shaped platters stand their transient jewels. On a Minoan vase, 1500 B.C., dolphi...

  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...