Writing
Coming apart at the seams
Nearly June. Already! The wild patch is rowdy with weeds. Capped with gossipy blossoms, they are sprouting with abandon, boisterously green, drunk on photosynthesis. All is jaunty chaos. All is splendid. Except for the disconcerting gleam of their foliage, glazed with sap from the aphid-riddled tree above. A rash of greenfly appeared on my t-shirt when I pruned off a couple of branches, lest they spread to my beech [...]
Bluebells
The bluebells are ringing in my garden! I have one naturalised clump of them, nestled beneath the beech hedge, and they are now in full bloom. The upright Spanish variety, rather than the drooping English bluebells of childhood memory, they nonetheless transport me back in time… Until I was nine years old, we lived in an unprepossessing 1960s semi at the end of a cul-de-sac. How I LOVED [...]
Hello, little weed…
... You look like you're in a listening mood, though actually you're just wedged, stuck in a crack between the patio stones. Much as I love spring, in tandem with the sap rising I can feel an anxiety beginning to put out tendrils from my belly. It is now that the garden messily awakens from its slumber, and I feel dismayed by the extra labour involved in tending to it. How on [...]
Marcus
I am very new to ‘proper’ photography with a DSLR rather than a mobile phone, and learning to use the camera has been a challenge to my impulsive, somewhat acquisitive nature. Like a toddler with a new toy, when my Canon camera arrived I ripped off the packaging and went straight out to the woods, pointing and shooting in Auto mode. I felt dismayed and affronted when the [...]
The Ten of Swords
The Tarot definitely has a sense of humour, albeit sometimes a dark one. Take the Ten of Swords, for instance – the card I recently drew when I was feeling overwhelmed. When I began studying and working with the Tarot, I quickly learned that its potency does not lie so much in divination as revelation. More than anything, the images on the cards are a powerful tool for [...]
Website makeover: why the wren?
Hello :) I've been trying to work out how to send a one-off newsletter in Mailchimp, but I'm stumped. Or to be more honest: I gave up after five minutes of trying to fathom it because, when it comes to working out Technical Stuff, I have all the staying power of a chocolate teapot under a blowtorch. Instead, I am writing a micro-post to tell you about my [...]