Walking Home by Simon Armitage

Subtitled 'Travels with a Troubadour on the Pennine Way' this book follows Armitage as he walks the Pennine Way from north to south, giving poetry readings every night in whichever local settlement has agreed to host him. At the end of every reading he hands round a sock which invariably fills up with cash and odd little gifts . Given that on most occasions there's a fair amount of cash in the sock, the readings effectively pay for the walk, specially considering that he has found people to host him and provide his food for free along the journey.

But then Armitage is, in poetic terms at least, famous. (And deservedly so, I might add). I doubt most poets would be able to carry out such an expedition funded by the proceeds of socks handed out at the end of readings.

I often get annoyed with travel books, finding there to be too much cruel humour at the expense of people met along the way. This book though, while very funny (on more than one occasion I regretted my decision to read this book on public transport, given how much I laughed at some points) mostly avoids being at anyone's expense. Though some people seem to be annoying, I never felt that Armitage was specifically looking to do anyone down just to liven up his prose.

And this is fine prose too, with beautiful descriptions of the landscape and the wildlife:

"Down by the waterfall, before Keld village, a male redstart waits on the branch of a rowan tree just long enough for me to see the fire in its belly and the afterburn of its tail".

Armitage claims not to be a birdwatcher because he doesn't make lists, but he certainly knows his birds.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book, entertaining and really rooted in the landscape, plus with added poems. However it didn't make me want to walk the Pennine Way. All that bad weather and more importantly all those impossibly steep tracks and vertiginous paths!

Walking Home by Simon Armitage published by Faber.

Tree Following Plus NaPoWriMo

I'm following a larch tree in Colinton Dell by the Water of Leith for Tree Following.  The tree has its own number, given to it by Edinburgh City Council. 

You can read more about how the council looks after its trees here.

 The larch is getting greener and its flowers are well past their best now, though still in bloom.

I was delighted, after waiting for a little while, to see the two long tailed tits fluttering around, seemingly catching small insects and then popping into the nest. They're very speedy little birds and that, combined with the poor light conditions, made getting a photo of them impossible.

The larch stands very close to the site of the old Bog's Mill, which is currently being made into a wildflower meadow by the Water of Leith Conservation Trust. I was delighted to see cowslips here for the first time today! (Though it will be a while before they're as prolific here as they are in Blackleach Country Park, near where my parents live!).

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Well, NaPoWriMo has come to an end. I've written a poem almost every day this month, most of them very rough first drafts. My intention in taking part in the project was to try to make sure I capture moments of inspiration and make them into poetry rather than just putting them in a blog post or a Facebook status or a tweet. I think I succeeded in that. Given the number of haiku I wrote during the month, I think in future, I'll take part in NaHaiWriMo instead!

The other thing I did during NaPoWriMo was to produce an updated version of my first poetry chapbook Bougainvillea Dancing, which is now available in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop or you can order it directly from me and pay via Paypal or with a UK cheque. I'm hoping to have the book available on other platforms in the near future. Plus I'm still working on the giveaway I promised before I visited my parents!

Blackleach Country Park

I spent the weekend with my parents. The weather was lovely and we spent a lot of time in the garden. We also visited Blackleach Country Park, which is just up the road from them.

The cowslips were in full bloom:

We saw a lot of butterflies, specially orange tips, peacocks and small tortoiseshells.

There were good numbers of birds on the pond including four great crested grebes. Lots of birds singing in the trees and bushes too.

My mother recently started whistling under her breath, which when I first noticed it, it reminded me of the willow warbler song, which my mother said was accidental as she's not familiar with the willow warbler's song. So when I heard a willow warbler at Blackleach, I suggested to Mum that she should do her willow warbler whistle, which she did, and the two of them enjoyed a short conversation!

for Nature Notes. 

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and for NaPoWriMo


Music

The crescendo crashes out of the radio
full blast as it to drown
thought and the constant ticking
of the clock.

Outside blackbirds serenade
an unlistening world.

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and I'll be offering a giveaway here soon! 

Supersized Salvage!

Kevin's Supersized Salvage on Channel 4 yesterday was totally inspiring for anyone interested in making things from 'waste' materials. A whole aeroplane repurposed into useful products including a garden office, rickshaws, coat hooks, lampshades. Also lots of interesting stuff about finding niche markets for these types of products. Fascinating too to see the evolution of the products from raw concept to final products selling for high prices in upmarket shops. Would have been nice to see more 'affordable' products but one of the aims of the project was to make more money than the aeroplane would have made if the metals were salvaged and the rest sent to landfill so aiming for the high end of the market was their best (and probably only realistic) option.....

If you're looking for more affordable upcycled items, there's a whole range in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop! 

I scheduled this blog post in advance, writing it very quickly after watching the programme, which is why there's no poem for NaPoWriMo with it. I'm currently offline for a few days, will return soon and remember - there'll be a giveaway on this blog soon after I come back.

Grey wagtail

Today we walked along the Water of Leith from Roseburn via the Gallery of Modern Art (where we enjoyed some delicious cakes and coffee in the cafe garden) to Dean Village. Lots of birds along just a very short stretch of the river and Crafty Green Boyfriend caught this handsome grey wagtail on camera.

If you click on the image you'll get a better view.

The grey wagtail always seems too colourful for its name!

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Much More than a Wall



great tits and bullfinches
and other small birds
gather the moss that grows in the wall


to line the nests they've secretly built
in the spaces between the stones
or in the ivy overhanging the wall.

Soon if you look closely
you'll see them carrying food
into the holes in the wall

and one day in late spring
the chicks will emerge
after a childhood spent living inside a wall.

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today's prompt at NaPoWriMo was to write a poem about a wall.

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I'm taking a short break from all things online over the next few days and shortly after I return I'll be doing a wee giveaway on this blog.  I'll still write a poem a day and will try to share them here when I get back!

Jewellery display board

I got this lovely, but slightly worn piece of macrame work from a friend who was clearing out her Mum's house. I immediately thought of using it as an earring display board so I went searching in second hand shops and eventually found this frame that was going cheap as it had no back and no glass, ideal for my purposes. I soaked the macrame in a warm solution of salt and baking soda to remove the slight yellowness. I then cut a piece of contrasting red cardboard to fit behind the macrame and here you are, an eye-catching earring display board! The earrings themselves are notable too, as they're made from recycled plastic and they look very nice, but are too lightweight to wear on a windy day! The only problem with this type of earring display board is the earrings are liable to get more dusty than if they're kept in a jewellery box, which is where they've been so far. So I'm not sure whether to use this for earrings or find an alternative use for it.... (Suggestions for alternative uses welcome.....).


A season of change

buds bursting into bloom
birds coming out of hiding to sing
and lay eggs that hatch into chicks

Mixing and matching
things that are discarded
to make something new

a cycle continues.

for NaPoWriMo

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Meanwhile I've added another digital photo download to the new nature photography section of the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop. 

Tree watching - larch update

The garlic mustard is coming into bloom under the larch tree, which I'm studying for Tree Following.

If you look carefully in the photo below you can see the long tailed tits' nest, a lovely hanging basket woven from lichen, spiders webs and other such delicate materials. We didn't see the birds yesterday, hopefully they're hiding in the nest, sitting on eggs.

Further upstream, it was lovely to see several harts-tongue ferns just starting to uncurl.

while some are slightly further out.

and the orange ladybirds (Halyzia 16-guttata) are still hibernating in the iron railings!

Today's poem for NaPoWriMo is over on my Shapeshifting Green blog.

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And a reminder that the pdf of an updated version of my chapbook Bougainvillea Dancing is now available to buy in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop. 10% of proceeds from the sale of this book go to VSO for their work in Malawi and other parts of southern Africa.

I've also set up a photography section of the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop where you can buy downloads of some of my nature photos. The first photo available is the larch flowers.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.