It takes a community to write a book
(This first appeared as a guest blog for Booka Bookshop, Oswestry).
I grew up with the image of the lonely artist; Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, James Joyce sitting in the lonely garret writing in splendid isolation. I accepted that Wordsworth really did wander lonely as a cloud and that Yeats wrote about things falling … Read more
Violets, oaks and how we are all connected
Violets
Have you noticed how many violets there are this year?
The warmer weather has drawn them out. They peep from the hedgerows, the verges, the woodland. Tiny, purple, delicate. This year they have had a chance to bloom before the more robust plants like nettles and grasses crowd them out. They glow in the … Read more
Friends, Strangers and Facebook
Last Saturday night the kids and I were at a friend’s birthday bonfire night party with a roaring fire, beautiful fireworks, lovely people and some delicious food. We got home about 930pm to find the house empty and dogs and partner missing.
When I checked my phone, I could see a stream of increasingly random … Read more
When bad stuff happens…form a net to hold the light
When bad stuff happens there are ripples. Ripples beyond the specific circumstances to even those hardly involved. Who can not have been moved by the Grenfell Tower tragedy?
When bad stuff happens we look for explanations. We want to understand how it happened, why it happened, why to me, why now, what could have stopped … Read more
2 Trees – the nature of relationships
P and I were talking….about the nature of relationships…your average Sunday conversation.
He used the metaphor of 2 trees standing side by side but apart which reminded me of what Kahil Gibran says in ‘The Prophet’:
… Read moreGive your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your