Bishops and Bunnies in Gloucester

With a few hours to while away in Gloucester, we had a best forgotten curry (Saag Cheddar - seriously!) and a wander around an almost deserted city centre.  

  

St Oswald's Priory

Somewhere a football match was taking place.  It wasn't really any of my concern. It was good just to wind down a little from my book launch the previous night.  

  

Beyond St Mary's Gate we came across the monument to John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester, who was burnt at the stake for treason during the reign of Queen Mary.  At that time a huge elm had stood very close to where he was martyred and people watched the proceedings from its boughs. It took three-quarters of an hour for Hooper to die. It is said he asked repeatedly for more fire so that he might die more quickly. 








Rather more cheerfully - if bizarrely - we spotted lots of rabbits running around on the roundabout where Barnwood Road, Corinium Avenue and Eastern Avenue meet. When I got home, I googled them. It turns out they are A Thing and have their own Facebook page. Which I have liked, obviously.  

Berkeley: A Bit of a Bitter Pill

Having dropped Son the Elder off in Berkeley at six in the morning for some extra work, and with three hours to spare before I had to take my father to an appointment back in Bristol, I decided to go for a walk along Berkeley Pill from the village to the River Severn and back - an excursion of around three and a half miles. 

It was just over five years since Ted, my dog, and I had last walked this route, as part of a longer walk. It was good seeing familiar landmarks again, like the old mill on the opposite bank of the pill ... 

... and the massive cattle, this time the other side of a fence. Phew. 

They reminded me of a ditty I wrote about Ted that day, while I was walking along. It's at the end of this post. 

Two months later in the season and instead of cattle and mud, there was an excess of vegetation to contend with. It didn't look like anyone had maintained the footpath at all - if, indeed, there was a footpath in there somewhere. 

In no time, Ted and I were soaked. But being intrepid jaunters, we weren't about to abandon a walk on account of dew - oh no. 

Here's something you don't see very often - a wooden squeeze-belly. 

There were plenty of birds about - I saw a family of goldfinches taking off from a thorn tree, a skylark on a post, and a heron in flight, all trailing legs and looking just like that lanky nine year old girl at primary school who not only won every running race going but also turned out to be effortlessly good at high jump the very first time we were made to try it.  

The sheep weren't that impressed by Ted.

In fact, this one only bothered to wake up when we were almost on top of it. It did have the good grace to move off, looking a little ... sheepish.

Meanwhile, Ted and I were encountering padlocked gates ...

... and nettle-infested stiles - which I managed to negotiate on both legs of the walk without getting stung, while Ted, who doesn't know he can jump, was reduced to crawling on his belly under the gates. 

This gate leading to Berkeley Nuclear Power Station wasn't very welcoming either but we didn't care to go there. 

The tide was in at the estuary, but it had taken me twice as long to get there as I'd envisaged, on account of having to wade through long grass, so there was no time to hang about. 

On the return leg, as the narrow path wound along the very edge of the pill, I mistook the grass, brambles and stingers to one side for solid ground and found myself falling into a hole that must have been almost four feet deep. It took me two attempts to climb back out, clinging onto handfuls of tussocks, while Ted grunted at me in consternation. 

Nothing broken, thankfully, but I was badly stung by nettles, covered in scratches, and my big toe, already plagued with arthritis, was quite badly strained. All smugness gone, I limped and squelched back to the car while Ted slid me withering collie glances.  





   

Fledged

My fourth and final chick has fledged, and is living with his lovely girl. 

Well, that was an interesting 10,394 days.  

I think I might have a little lie down now.  

Billboards all along the Kennet & Avon

Well, maybe not quite, but the pressure was on - 'Kin' had to have an airing on today's Poetry Please or else, as my friend Jan pointed out, Dru Marland might be done for selling copies of 'Inking Bitterns', in which it appears, under false pretences. 

In the event it was there, tucked in amongst offerings from Thomas Hardy, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charlotte Brontë, Wislawa Szymborska, Mark Doty, John Clare et al. How very exciting - even if it took four years from when Dru made her request.   Clearly, the mills of the Beeb grind slow.  

If you missed it and would like to hear it, follow this link. It's almost exactly half way through the programme, at 15.04 minutes in.  Or wait until next Saturday, 4th June, when it will be repeated at 11.30pm. 

As mentioned above, 'Kin' is published in Dru's 2012 illustrated anthology of nature poetry, Inking Bitterns, available from Gert Macky books, and also in my 2011 collection Communion, published by Indigo Dreams.

Readings Past and Presently ...

Ben Banyard, with whom I'm sharing a launch of our respective publications, Communing and Breadcrumbs, on Friday 10th June, has posted an interesting account of a recent reading we did with fellow Indigo Dreams Publishing poets, Chrys Salt and Anna Saunders, at Cheltenham Poetry Festival.  This is his photo of the pub it was held in, the Frog and Fiddle ... 

... but to read about the rest of our brilliant evening,  you'll have to click here.

Meanwhile, I'm guest poet at Bristol's very own Can Openers this Friday coming, from midday at Steam Cafe Bar. Do come along and bring a poem of your own for the open mic. 

If you don't know where Steam Cafe Bar is, it's on Union Gate, just along from the old Bridewell.  The same rank of shops where Pitt and Hudson the jewellers used to be, where I first got my ears pierced, and that pet shop where I used to get sawdust for my rabbit, Ziggy Stardust, and Bananas where you could buy the most ridiculously baggy jeans - oh, those were the days. 

'Kin' on Poetry Please this Sunday!

After a false start a month or so ago, when nothing happened, Dru's received an email from the Beeb to say that my poem, 'Kin', requested by her back in 2012, will DEFINITELY be on Poetry Please on Radio 4 this Sunday, from 4.30pm. That's this Sunday, 29th May. From 4.30pm. Absolutely definitely. Really.

However, I've since been informed that it  will be on the same time as the commentary on some football match at Wembley involving a team called Barnsley. And apparently this might be a problem ...

Oh well, I'm sure someone will rethink their priorities before it's too late.  

'Kin' is from my 2011 collection, 'Communion', published by Indigo Dreams Press, and also appears in Dru's illustrated anthology of wildlife poems, 'Inking Bitterns', available from Gert Macky Books. 

A Poem for Mental Health Awareness Week 2016

I'm posting a poem from my new collection, Breadcrumbs, to mark Mental Health Awareness Week 2016, which has the theme of relationships.


Headland

  

This was no rupture. No sudden loss

that left you stranded from yourself

All the same, the land is gone

He must have filched it with a spoon

so surreptitiously sometimes even now

you don’t perceive its absence as anything

more than a tendency to dream

don’t hear the breach filled with echoing dark,

don’t notice you’ve stopped building boats and bridges

out of stories

©Deborah Harvey 2016