Before the second lockdown, I spent some Tuesday mornings walking with a group in our local woodlands, fields and lanes. Every week, the group leader planned routes for us to explore. I was delighted to discover new places to enjoy the landscape. On one of our walks, we stood at the top of a rise […]
Tag: Haibun Monday
What you can’t see can’t hurt you
I was pregnant and staying with friends in the one-storey lodge house of an old priests’ college in the middle of Ireland. Although allowed in the college grounds, my friends kept to their own garden, put off by tales of a death in the swimming pool, long fallen into disrepair, and ghosts from the private […]
Harvesting the Moon
Although trees are still mostly green, the year is finally turning. Autumn is here: hedges are crimson with berries; leaves are yellowing, and the year is fading to brown. In the air, there is already a taste of frost. I find myself willing leaves to change colour and fall, so that I can crunch them […]
A Hike in the Moselle Valley
When I was about nineteen and living in Cologne, after repeated ferocious tonsillitis my tonsils were finally removed. A hike in the Moselle Valley had been planned by some male friends of mine and they insisted I come along, post-operative or not. It was late autumn, frosty and cold. The ancient hotel we were staying […]
A Taste of Southern Comfort
Fifty was a special birthday for me: I had a new teaching post to start in September, my daughter had come home to celebrate with us, and I had completed half a century pretty much unscathed. I opened cards and a few presents and was feeling good. I knew that my husband was planning something, […]
One Shining Moment
One of my shiniest moments was when I played the genie of the lamp in my junior school’s production of Aladdin. I was about ten years old, very shy and lacking confidence, but I loved singing, dancing and acting, the only times when I came out of my shell. My costume was bright and colourful, […]
Impressions of New York
I was nervous about the long flight, the stories I had heard about New York, and the terrible event of the previous year. Yes, my one and only visit took place a year after 9/11. We came in to land at night, lights sparkled below us, but I was sitting in a middle aisle and […]
Shakespeare First
I have always loved Will’s work from the moment I was introduced to his plays at school, and I remember falling in love with the sonnets as if it was only yesterday. The first poems I wrote as a teenager were sonnets and I still fall into the form when I least expect it. The […]
The End of a Storm
It was the morning after a terrifying storm, and we were woken by the telephone in the very early hours. My husband was called in to secure tubes and sheets on scaffold, and to help tidy up the very large gas site, where he has worked for over twenty-seven years. As his car was out […]
On first hearing The Planets by Gustav Holst
Of all the music created by Gustav Holst, Mars, the Bringer of War was the most terrifying to my young ears. The first time I heard it was in a music lesson at school, in which we had to work out the planet for each of the seven pieces, and I sensed darkness, drama and […]
