Winter Solstice and Dressing Up as the Turbulence of Everywhere

I'm definitely not one for driving all the way across town in the rainy, rush-hour dark of December for a social gathering, but when the gathering in question is the warm and convivial Christmas edition of Under the Red Guitar at El Rincon in Bedminster, how can I resist?

Bob Walton and Dom Fisher giving great waistcoat

Guest poet Jonathan Edwards

Peter Gruffydd

The driver's single glass of Rioja

Attendees had been urged to wear something glitzy, an instruction all bar one of them ignored because you try instructing poets. Having resolved, a day or two earlier, not to air one of my poems from 'Love the Albatross' - estrangement isn't just for Christmas, after all - I dressed as the poem I'd decided to read instead, which was 'In the Meantime' by the late Yorkshire poet, John Foggin. It's an inversion of the tale told by the Venerable Bede about the sparrow flying through the mead hall, as a metaphor for the transience of life, and perfect for an hour or two in a room of light and warmth, with all the long dark just the other side of the window. 

Me, as the turbulence of everywhere, the thin smell of snow and the sparrow

But as mesmerising as this poem about the journey into darkness we're all making is, I still yearn for light this time of year, which is why, as I drove down into deepest Wiltshire at dawn the next morning, I was glad it was shaping up to be a fine day.

It was only the second time I'd driven my friend Jinny and her dog Millie from their narrowboat, which is currently moored near Trowbridge on the Kennet and Avon canal, to Pont Abraham services, west of Swansea, where her parents were due to pick them up and continue the onward journey to their home in West Wales, but already it's beginning to feel like a marker of the approaching solstice and the turning of the year. 

Disturbing a heron on the bank

sunrise

Jinny and I carried and wheelbarrowed all the things she and Millie would need during their stay in Wales along the grassy path from her boat to my car. Millie and I then waited in the car while Jinny shut up the boat and brought the last few things along. I loved watching Millie's delight as her beloved Jinny drew closer.

In the end our drive was patchy. From brilliant sun at Trowbridge, we hit rain around Bath, and it was a mixture of sun and stormy squalls with much spray all the along the M4 to Carmarthenshire and back. The stormlight and rainbows were lovely, but no photos, of course, on account of it being a road trip during which I was required to keep both hands on the steering wheel. 

Once back, I relieved Son the Elder of his dog-sitting duties and headed for Purdown with Cwtch, from where I could look back to Freezing Hill, about six miles north of Bath, past which I'd driven - twice - hours earlier. It still looked pretty stormy over there, but Cwtch and I were briefly bathed in midwinter light and We Saw that It was Good. 

Pushing the Cart (and a Chance to Listen at your Leisure)

When my publisher, Ronnie Goodyer, told me that he and Dawn Bauling had nominated one of my poems from ‘Love the Albatross’ for a Pushcart Prize, I had to look it up. (The prize, that is). I'd seen people celebrating their nominations over the years, but without any idea exactly what it was. I had the impression being nominated was an honour, and largely its own reward, and having looked into it, that seems - realistically - to be the case. (At least, there 's an slim anthology of poems published every year, but thousands of nominations. I’m just very grateful to to have a poem amongst them.)

So. Many thanks to them both, and congratulations to my fellow Indigo Dreams nominees, alongside whom it’s an honour to be listed.

Also, now it's been aired, here's the link to hear Helen Ivory and me guest-poetting for West Wilts Radio's 'The Poetry Place' whenever the fancy takes you. 

Five Local Woods in Autumn

It's been a bit of a dark autumn, and having found myself in need of colour as the days dwindled, I set off for some of our local woods (with Cwtch, of course).

First, a couple of trips to Badock's Wood.  On the day of the first visit, the weather was gloomy but dry ... at least, it was when we'd left the house. Not long after we arrived, the skies opened and it tipped with rain. Rain after rain after rain, and River Trym was running much higher and faster than usual.

This isn't the river; it's a stream of water running down the path that leads to it.

Cwtch and I have worked hard on overcoming her fear of water, and I didn't want to risk her progress, so we steered clear of the river while it was running so high. 

As we squelched around the edge of the fields above the miniature gorge, I saw that someone other than me notices the stone marker on the footpath, and has attached some sort of the meaning to it in the absence of any information (I've been able to find) online.

Also, how both badger setts have been undergoing renovations.  

When we returned a couple of weeks later, we saw that this autumn, their poo is gold. Gold! Can't think what they've been eating. 

It was much drier for that second visit, and the river looked more its usual self. 

Cwtch, who's been having calming treats to get her through firework season, had an unaccustomed fit of bravery while I was studying some fungi on the fallen tree that arches high over the Trym, and started to trot over it, before looking down, realising how high she was, and returning smartly to the bank.

Jelly ear, Bracket fungus and ... Oh. Hmmm. I have precious little knowledge when it comes to fungus, but these possible woodtufts, or honey fungus, also look enough like galerina marginata - also known as funeral bells and deadly skullcap - for me to want to keep my distance 

more spectacular spindle berries

Inbetween the two visits to Badock's Wood, we also went for a walk at Three Brooks Nature Reserve in Bradley Stoke, with my friend, Liz. Again, the streams were running high, this one Patchway Brook. 

As usual, we were talking too hard for me to take many photos, but here's the view from the top of the tump ...

... which was itself water-logged in places. 

Savage's Wood

I met up with Liz again, and a few other longtime friends, a week or so later, for a walk in Leigh Woods, on the Somerset side of the Avon Gorge. Again, few photos because we were so busy chatting.

The water-hating Cwtch had a bit of a shock when she jumped over the low wall into a meadow, only to discover that the grass was duckweed, the field a pond, and she had to scramble back over the wall to safety. 

Paradise Bottom

River Avon, looking downstream

Since the Covid pandemic, I've been more inclined to study my maps of Bristol and seek out new places to walk, rather than necessarily heading off in the car, and just this last fortnight I found a new wood with public access just two miles from where I live. It starts at the edge of the Stoke Park, above the M32, and curves around Sims' Hill until it reaches Filton Road. The paths are either concrete or metalled, which cuts down on the mud a bit this time of year. 

With motorway and residential streets so close, Cwtch stayed on the lead for the outward part of our walk, until I was familiar with the lie of the land, whether there are fences between the trees and the traffic, and so on.

At a spot where ash trees had been felled because of dieback, and treelings planted, there was a view of Nearly Home bridge, the blue railway bridge that spans the M4 near its junction with the M32.

a tiny piece of hoggin I found on the path

After we'd reached Filton Road and turned around to retrace out steps, Cwtch could come off the lead till almost the end of the walk.

I was pleased to see how well looked after the woods were, with heaps of branches providing shelter for all sorts of wildlife. 

Cwtch went to have a look at a pond, but being a clever collie, didn't fall for the old duckweed trick a second time.

Towards the end of the walk, we were back near the M32 again - you can just spot a sign to the left of the trees in the above photo - so Cwtch went back on the lead until we got to the car. A lovely new walk we'll try again in different seasons. 

Finally, we also went on a few walks through Stoke Park itself, Cwtch and I mostly, though sometimes accompanied by the Northerner. Some days were wet, and the dry stream beds in Pale Plantation and Barn Wood remembered their true nature.

One day it was so wet and dark that Cwtch flatly refused to go into the woods, where it was darker still, so we walked along Purdown to the World War II gun emplacements instead. We got thoroughly wet away from the shelter of the trees, but she must have had a reason not to want to go in, and respecting her felt like the sensible thing to do. 

Other days have been misty and other-wordly, both out in the park ... 

... and in the woods.

And then there have been the few days of glorious sun, when the longed-for colours blazed into life. 

One of my favourite old oaks

If you're ever walking through autumn with 'California Dreamin'' running through your head, well, they're not. All brown. The leaves, that is.

One day was a bad day and that was the day after the US election. Stoke Park is near the  main site of the University of the West of England and no one looked happy ... 

... apart from Cwtch.

Not the original Duchess Lake

I did find a small but surprisingly colourful fungus growing from a pile of cow shit that morning, which just about summed things up, really.

two slugs eating Dog's Vomit slime mould

Purdown also yielded the last few feathers of the late season in September ...

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:   buzzard, magpie feathers x 3, jay feathers x 2, tawny owl and woodpigeon

... a few bits of hoggin ...

... and a couple of obliging squirrels.

 It was like that when I got here!

Well, perhaps the second one wasn't as much obliging as dead. It did make me think about how much of what we think of as a squirrel's tail is attitude.  

And there's always the trees that tell you to keep on going, by virtue of the fact that's what they're doing even though they've fallen. 

waymark 

(with my hair)