A new Permaculture Design Course (this is a longer than usual read so grab a cuppa)
Permaculture in the pandemic
It was the year of the pandemic. Living on the Wales and Shropshire border meant that our experience of that time was schizophrenic. When England was not wearing masks, Wales was. When England was free to travel, Wales was in lockdown. One village had the pubs in England opened while the … Read more
An Interview about the poem ‘Definition’ taken from Farmotherlands
(This blog was first published on Substack as part of the Thrutopia collection. The editor for the piece after the poem was Ana Salote. ‘Thrutopia’ was an initiative I attended, curated by Manda Scott. It was a creative and educational project encouraging us to consider not utopias (idealised futures) or dystopias (the worst imaginable … Read more
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
Can you make yourself invisible (and then very visible)
Last week I was out just after dawn and at the top of a hill, where I always stand for a moment of gratitude (at the view, but also that I can still get up the hill!), I saw a fox.
It was at the bottom of the field, running diagonally across it in the … Read more
Book launch 2nd April
Morning,
Just a quick email to let you know/remind you that Farmotherlands is launching on 2nd April at The Holroyd Community Theatre, off Station Road, Weston Rhyn SY10 7SZ.
Doors open 6:15pm and the talk starts at 7pm. Tickets cost £18 from Booka (and include the book as well as the evening’s entertainment). You can … Read more
A study of a blackbird washing
Zen and the art of bricks
I don’t remember much of Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, but once bit that stuck with me is when someone is struggling to write because they don’t know where to start. The mentor guides the would-be writer’s attention to zoom in from the whole view, to … Read more