Flying the Albatross

With the launch of my new collection approaching at pace, it was good to have a mini dress-rehearsal at Riff Corner Poetry Open Mic Night in Clevedon at the beginning of September, despite it taking me nearly an hour to drive the short distance home from my place of work through extensive roadworks, and then a return journey via Tickenham Hill and Failand in mist that was verging on fog. All hail autumn. 

Nevertheless, it was an interesting evening in good company. Open mic-ers currently get a little longer to read than at your average open mic session, and it was good to hear two or three poems, rather than the usual swift single, although this might have to change at some point as the evening was well attended and is clearly gaining in popularity. Thanks to Tim Burroughs for inviting me to read there, and for the above photo. 

Thanks are due also to Ben Banyard for asking me to read at Portishead's wildly successful ArtPort festival at the end of September. We'd been due to read alongside Bob Walton, but as he was still convalescing, Sue Hill, the other half of The Write Box, stepped into the breach. It was a lovely event, again well-attended and one I hope will be repeated next year.

 

 

My journey to Trowbridge Stanza on the first weekend in October was eventful, as someone drove into the back of my car by the Downs in Bristol. I was a bit shaken, but managed to complete the journey without further incident, and thoroughly enjoyed reading on the same  bill as Saili Katebe. We'd been due to read alongside each other back in 2020, as part of the Bristol Lyra Poetry Festival, which had been cancelled at the start of the pandemic, so it felt right and good to finally do that.

My penultimate autumn gig was in Bristol, as part of the Ten Bristol Poets event running at the Bristol Literary Film Festival in aid of St Peter's Hospice. It was a privilege to read alongside the following poets: 

TOP  1. Tim Burroughs  2. Jan Swann  3. Charles Thompson  4. Kaz Michael  5. Martin Rieser

BOTTOM:  6.  Helen Sheppard  7. David Punter  8. Me  9. Bob Walton  10. Melanie Branton

I enjoyed the opportunity of reading a few of my Bristol poems, from my collection 'Learning Finity', for a change, including one about my grandmother, who died in the care of the staff of St Peter's Hospice. Here's an earlier recording of it: 

 

My last autumn gig is Sunday 24th November and it's not necessary to leave the comfort of your own home to hear it, because I'm guest poet on West Wilts Radio's The Poetry Place at 3pm or any time you please, as it's streamable worldwide here.
 

Finally, it was great to have a poem from Love the Albatross in the latest issue of IDP's The Dawntreader ...

and also here, in the issue 4 of The Fig Tree.

Reviews of Love the Albatross can be found in Ink Sweat & Tears, London Grip and Tim Fellows' Substack.

Travels with My Cousin

The last time my cousin, Sandra, came over from her home in New Jersey to visit was a staggering fourteen years ago, and we had a fantastic time. I think it was the Easter holidays, so I wasn't working fixed days, and we went on a road trip to Leeds, which included visits to Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, Mr Straw's House in Worksop and Eyam in Derbyshire. And then a volcano in Iceland called Eyjafjallajökull erupted and all the planes between the UK and the US were grounded and we squeezed two extra jaunts out of her forced stay, visiting Isle Abbots and Shepton Beauchamp in Somerset, where our uncle lived, before walking from Langport to Muchelney and back, followed by a third trip to Kilve and East Quantoxhead. It was great. 

And funnily enough - although not for the poor folk of Grindavik - another Icelandic volcano erupted during this visit, but not causing enough air pollution to ground her flight this time. So she had just a week here, at a much less pleasant time of year, and during term time. Nevertheless, we still managed to meet up a couple of times, for which I'm grateful, and who knows, hopefully I'll get over to visit her in America sometime too. 

The photo below was taken by her at Easter Compton farm shop, where we had breakfast before my Auntie Mollie's 90th birthday party, the main reason for the timing of the visit. There are few photos of the Northerner and me together, so I'm really pleased to have this one.

With my cousin Joy, Sandra's sister, and her family

My late mother's six surviving brothers and sisters (from a total of eleven)

With as many of my cousins as could get to the party - we number 24 in all

my boys

Thursday was the day I had Sandra to myself, except of course there were still people who wanted to see her before she went back, so it was largely a matter of balancing everyone's needs, coupled with a truly gruesome weather forecast. In the end we booked a table at the Little Harp in Clevedon, where for a few years at the end of their lives, I took my parents on my mother's birthday. First, though, Son the Younger drove us to Portishead, where we spent a couple of hours with my friend, Liz, who knows Sandra well, and her husband, Paul. 

Clevedon was drizzly, as promised, but when we emerged from the pub, fortified by our lunch and the company of our cousin, Sarah, who lives in Clevedon, her dog Foxy, and the friend formerly known as 'Er-over-the-Road (who's really called Cathy and who knows Sandra well from previous visits), there was a window of drier weather so we made our way along the front to the pier. 

Looking in the opposite direction, we could see an interesting little coronet of cloud over Flat Holm, which is probably impossible to make out in this photo and which dissipated very quickly.

Of course, there had to be a photo call. Here's Cathy and Sandra ... 

... me and Sandra ... 

... Cwtch, Son the Younger, me and Sandra ... 

... me, Sandra, Cwtch and Cathy ... 

... and Cathy, Sandra, Cwtch, me, Sarah and Foxy.

Sarah pointed out the house where our grandfather, Jack Hill, lived before his family moved to Bristol, property prices being comparatively much cheaper in those days.

Clevedon Pier

Me, Cathy, Cwtch doing dressage, Sarah and Foxy

Mist on the Severn estuary at Sand Point, Flat Holm and Worlebury Hill 

And then the week, and Sandra's visit, was over. Thank goodness for keeping in touch on social media. 

Luck be a Ladye

I felt I deserved a treat after dropping my entire life with no notice at all and spending a week stewing over my disabled son's PIP review form, so after the Northerner had listened to the League One Play-Off Final - don't ask - we headed to Ladye Bay, just north of Clevedon, for an hour. 

Cliff path

Ladye Bay from the cliff path

Clevedon Pier

Peering through the haze towards Newport ...

... and over to Cardiff

fossil

The bay looking south

Setting sun

Comfrey on the cliff path

Ladye Bay is one of those places where you can feel the stress draining out of you and into the ground, and it's only a few miles down the road. What a piece of luck. 

Funeral blues

And when it all got too much, we went to - actually, it all got too much about nine days ago, but everything came to a climax today and I just had to get away and sit on a beach for an hour or two, letting the sound of the waves empty my mind.

Our destination Ladye Bay, a tiny pebbled cove to the north of Clevedon ...

... with views upstream to the Skirrid near Abergavenny, directly across to Newport, and just to the left, Mynydd Machen, Mynydd Maen and Twmbarlwm, then downstream to Cardiff ... 

... and ultimately, on this side of the estuary, Clevedon Pier, a mile or so to the south.  

The beach was small enough for Cwtch to potter about on her own a bit, which she really enjoyed ... 

... although we had to make sure she didn't get too close to other families to bother them. (We weren't the only escapees from Queen Elizabeth's funeral.) 

On our way down the M5, we'd seen a helicopter flying north and I'd joked with Son the Younger that it was taking number plates to see who wasn't mourning appropriately. Then two more flew up the coast ... 

... followed presently by a raven, which might even have flown down from the Tower of London, who knows in this present climate of zero tolerance for dissent.

As usual, I was on the look-out for treasure. This curlew feather, for instance ... 

... and masses of sea glass - in fact, I don't think I've ever picked up so much sitting on the spot. The only thing is, the pieces are mostly tiny. I could only safely empty my pockets once we were back home.

I could have stayed there for ever, but eventually it was time to depart, especially as Son the Younger was due to drive back to Rugby and another early morning shift at work. It was good, though, to spend a couple of hours outside of time and away from a prescribed narrative I don't share.  And what a find in lovely Ladye Bay. I will be back.