Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly (Little, Brown) The shipping forecast is a national institution. In a former life I heard it regularly on getting home late after working the evening Box Office shift, or more usually getting home late after the after work drinks. I'd dream of a simpler, less hectic, seaside life and… Continue reading Review: Attention All Shipping
If you've been here a while you'll know how much I love to read (if you're new, hello and welcome) but I'm finding it hard to read anything at all during these days of social distancing and isolation. It's ironic really, most of my time I spend wanting to not be doing the thing I'm… Continue reading Strange Times: The Woods
I wrote this, or started to, a couple of weeks ago as COVID-19 approached, but before home-schooling, before lock-down. As the scale of the crisis unfurled on the news I went on a massively LONG walk, I couldn't stop my feet from moving ever forward, along the riverbank, over muddy fields and to the medieval… Continue reading Winter Notes Seven: Edgelands
Under The Stars : A Journey Into Light by Matt Gaw (Elliot & Thompson) If you look up at the sky at night from your front step, back garden or high-rise window what do you see? Try it now (if it's night, and it's not cloudy) are there stars? Are there loads of them, can… Continue reading Review: Under The Stars: A Journey Into Light
What is it about mist. It's a bit magical, don't you think? It's a cloud in a place where a cloud shouldn't be. Not inpenetrable, you can see quite far, yet it changes everything. It renders the familiar unfamiliar, messing with our sense of perspective and place. Am I on the ground, or am I… Continue reading Winter Notes Six : MIST
This semi-distant line of trees is an obsession of mine, mainly because I can't work out if I can get there without trespassing. Walk down the track, past the cottage and barns, and the path you could take is quite definitely NO ACCESS. Besides, that route may entail crossing a bit of river, but maybe… Continue reading Winter Notes: Five
A moment of joy on a gloomy January morning. Cycling along the short stretch of Thames Path (a journey I do 4 days out of seven), the meadow alongside is a small lake and two flocks of gulls rest there. As I ride by they lift into small murmurations, swooping overhead, I can hear their… Continue reading Winter Notes: Four
On the Thames Path the geese are back. In the mornings they honk in squadrons along the river, and argue under Donnington Bridge by the Sea Scouts hut. By the afternoons they're a bit knackered and I find them waddling with attitude along the towpath, giving the side-eye to dog walkers and cyclists like me.… Continue reading Winter Notes: Three
Ring The Hill by Tom Cox (Unbound) Here we are again taking wonderful walks along the lanes and fields, the beaches and - this is what it's all about - up and down hills of England in the company of Tom Cox. The whole book is threaded through with hares, as almost mythical, unfindable creatures… Continue reading Review: Ring The Hill
So wet by the end of December. We had days of torrential downpouring, I wondered if the water would ever stop falling. I found a little waterfall on the steps to Christchurch from Merton Grove. A London visit. I don't usually suffer from the dark. I love the little Christmas lights on trees, festive windows,… Continue reading Winter Notes : Two
