The Old Coach Road

 The Way Through the Woods
by Rudyard Kipling

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago. 
Weather and rain have undone it again, 
And now you would never know 
There was once a road through the woods 
Before they planted the trees. 
It is underneath the coppice and heath, 
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees 
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease, 
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods 
Of a summer evening late, 
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools 
Where the otter whistles his mate, 
(They fear not men in the woods, 
Because they see so few.) 
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet, 
And the swish of a skirt in the dew, 
Steadily cantering through 
The misty solitudes, 
As though they perfectly knew 
The old lost road through the woods...
But there is no road through the woods.

This week I had a walk in the autumn sunshine from Norwood Green to Hove Edge, via the old coach road (above) at Lightcliffe. 

The coach road is an unsurfaced lane which runs from Wakefield Road just above St. Matthew’s Church at Lightcliffe to Hove Edge, but originally it was part of the main highway linking Brighouse and Queensbury. 

Prior to the 1860s, it was also the principle access to the Crow Nest Estate, today a golf course but which was once the site of a substantial mansion constructed in 1775 by William Walker (who also owned High Sunderland for a time) and later owned by local mill tycoon Sir Titus Salt of Saltaire fame between 1867 and 1876. 

The house was abandoned after the First World War and ultimately demolished in the mid-1950s. However, the original gateposts to the house can still be seen beside the track.

It's a quiet, peaceful, atmospheric lane, but also perhaps a little lonely, and I was reminded while walking of Kipling's poem (above). I could almost hear 'the beat of a horse's feet, and the swish of a skirt.' When I got home and investigated the history of this ancient way, I was not surprised to find that it has a reputation for being haunted. Click here to find our more. 

Writing Prompts:

• Write about a walk you have taken recently in the autumn sunshine. Use all your senses to describe it.
• Read Rudyard's poem again and take a word or phrase to use as a trigger for your writing  - perhaps even another poem.  (eg. 'the beat of a horse's feet' or 'the swish of a skirt'.)
• Have you ever been somewhere, perhaps on a walk or while visiting a building, and felt you were not alone? Write about you ghostly experience.

Letting Go

 

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

 "Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go."

(unknown)

Our natural instinct it to cling on to those things, experiences and people that are precious and beautiful. I want the glorious autumn colour to last, but I know that in a few weeks it will be gone. It's hard to let things go.

Two of the seven essential attitudes of Mindfulness are 'acceptance' and 'letting go.' We are advised "not to get caught up in good or bad, high or low, pleasant or unpleasant. Just let the experience be what is, moment by moment. This letting be is actually a way of letting go. By not interfering, by just letting things be, you give them a better chance to go."

Writing prompts:

• What have you had to let go of recently? Write about the experience and how it made you feel.
• What would you like to let go of? Explore the answer to this question in your writing and perhaps look at what is holding you back and making you cling on.
• Autumn colour is glorious. Click here for a colourful autumnal visit to an arboretum. Click here for some wonderful quotes about the season. Write in response to one of them.
• Make a list of all the things (in nature and in your life generally) that vanish in Autumn. What will you miss the most over the coming months? Set a timer for seven minutes and write about it.

Autumn Mirth

https://unsplash.com/@szmigieldesign

Digging 2

To-day I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;

Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;

The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.

It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.

 

by Edward Thomas

 

This afternoon was warm and sunny, so I've been working in the garden, pruning, weeding and planting. It seemed appropriate therefore to include Edward Thomas's evocative poem for you to savour. Click here to discover more about this poem and the poet. 

Today also marked the Autumn Equinox. That is the moment when the Sun crosses the celestial equator and neither hemisphere is tilted towards or away from the Sun, meaning day and night are roughly equal in length across the world. So, we say goodbye to summer and welcome autumn. Click here to find out more.

 

Writing prompts:

• Write about what you need to say goodbye to and what you would like to welcome in. 
• There are many poems about autumn and you can find some here. Now try writing your own autumn poem.
• Go outside into your garden, or for a walk in nature, then come home and write about what you saw, smelt, heard and felt. 

 

 

The Green Man

 

 GREEN MAN IN THE GARDEN
By Charles Causley 

Green man in the garden
Staring from the tree,
Why do you look so long and hard
Through the pane at me?

Your eyes are dark as holly,
Of sycamore your horns,
Your bones are made of elder-branch,
Your teeth are made of thorns.

Your hat is made of ivy-leaf,
Of bark your dancing shoes,
And evergreen and green and green
Your jacket and shirt and trews.

“Leave your house and leave your land
And throw away the key,
And never look behind,” he creaked,
“And come and live with me.”

I bolted up the window,
I bolted up the door,
I drew the blind that I should find
The green man never more.

But when I softly turned the stair
As I went up to bed,
I saw the green man standing there.
“Sleep well, my friend,” he said. 

There's a Green Man in our village. He isn't always easy to spot. Sometimes he hides behind his long hair and whiskers, but once in a while he reappears clean-shaven and with a smart new hair cut. 

 

He sits at the bottom of the hill, a welcoming sight for anyone approaching the village. We're lucky to have him as Norwood Green is surrounded by woods and traditionally the Green Man is thought to be 'the keeper of the forest and the woods.'

 

Being evergreen, he's still got plenty of leaves during December when he grows a bushy, white beard and becomes Father Christmas. Then, after the long winter, he will appear with new, lush vegetation to herald the coming of Spring. 

 

As in the poem above, it seems that the Green Man keeps his beady eye on you. If you look closely up at the sycamore tree at the top of the hill in our village, opposite the old church, you might spot him again, looking down, keeping watch.  

  

Click here to find out more about the Green Man. 

Writing prompts:

• Read the poem again. What do you make of the Green Man? Friend of foe? Write about it.
• Is there something welcoming in the area where you live? Write about it in any way you like. 
• Write about a time when someone invited you (in reality or in your imagination) to "Leave your house ... come and live with me"? 

Please share your writing or leave a comment on the blog. Thanks.  

The Magic of Fossils

Sir David Attenborough: "Kids like their fossils. I've taken my godson fossil-hunting and there's nothing more magical than finding a shiny shell and knowing you're the first person to have seen it for 150 million years."

Tracy Chevalier: "That's how fossil hunting is: It takes over, like a hunger, and nothing else matters but what you find. And even when you find it, you still start looking again the next minute, because there might be something even better waiting."

Leonardo da Vinci:"Why are the bones of great fishes, and oysters and corals and various other shells and sea-snails, found on the high tops of mountains that border the sea, in the same way in which they are found in the depths of the sea?"

Above is one of the many fossils I found recently among the limestone rocks on the beach between Bamburgh and Seahouses in Northumberland. I'm not exactly sure what this is - maybe a crinoid or brachiopod - but  it's probably between 330 to 350 million years old, at a time when Northumberland sat near the equator under a warm, shallow tropical sea. I find that a mind-blowing fact. Click here find our more about fossil hunting in Northumberland. Click here to find out about the largest-ever fossil of a giant millipede found on nearby Howick Beach.

Writing prompts:

•  As Tracy Chevalier says, searching for fossils can take you over and become an obsession. Write about something that you became obsessed with at some point in your life.  How did it affect you and those around you?
•  What is the most interesting thing you have found on a beach? Write about it?
• If you became a fossil who would you like to find you and where? 

On the Death of a Cat

 

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." by Kahlil Gibran

Yesterday we said goodbye to one of our two beloved cats. Brio was certainly vivacious, full of energy and spirit, as her name implied. A bantam weight, she was nevertheless feisty, independent and not to be messed with. 

She was our friend and companion for almost 19 years and we acutely miss her presence in our house and in our lives. So does her sister, Poco, who is rather confused and disorientated at her sudden loss. Cats grieve too I think.  

Click here   for a touching poem about the death of a cat.

Writing prompts:

•   Write about a pet that you have loved and lost.  

Drought

 

https://unsplash.com/@pawel_czerwinski

 When it’s dry here,
the clay in the soil shrinks,
its particles pulling
more tightly together
until deep cracks form in the earth,
a force so powerful
it can damage foundations.
This makes me wonder
about how we, too,
storied to have come from clay,
can crack in times of drought.
I have felt it, drought of love,
drought of touch, drought of death,
drought of compassion and justice.
And I have known, too, the miracle
of how when the drought is over,
the clay of my soul expands again,
absorbing what it most needs.
Is it strange how much comfort
I take in knowing it’s natural,
that cracking is what we do,
it’s part of the cycle.
Of course, the cracking.
And of course, the healing.
I am awed by its force
and how little it takes,
even a small bit of rain,
for deep healing to begin.

by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer

Click here for more poems. 

We've had no rain for weeks - at least nothing to write home about. Reservoirs and rivers are running low, farmers are having to harvest crops early, wildfire risk is increasing, and millions of people are living under restrictions on water use. Yorkshire hasn't yet officially been declared an area of drought, but surely that's coming, along with a hosepipe ban. I will continue to water my pots of Cosmos, until I'm told not to. 

Click here to find out about the drought declared in half of England. 

It's all relative of course. We are not experiencing the same devastation from wildfires as other parts of Europe. The fire near Madrid, in Spain, would span the entirety of Greater London, approximately the diameter of the M25. Click here to find out more. 

Writing prompts:

• Read the poem above. Do you agree that we too can 'crack in times of drought'? Set a timer and write about a time when you have 'cracked'. What kind of drought have you felt?
• I love the positivity and reassurance the poet gives that, like the dried earth soaking up the rain, 'the soul expands again, absorbing what it most needs.' Write about a time when you have begun to heal, even in a small way. 
• Is it comforting to know that it's natural to 'crack' and that it's part of a cycle that others feel too? Write in response to this question. 

• For you, what is the 'small bit of rain' that enables you to start healing? Write about this in any way you like.

Please click on 'No Comments' to leave me some feedback, or share you writing. You could 'Follow' my blog too. Thanks.