The first days of February are the time of Imbolc or ‘the first showing’, the start of spring in Celtic and pagan calendars. Just four short weeks into the New Year, and already the season is progressing from late winter, into a semi-spring. It is a fickle season when there is still a likelihood of …
SFN Journal – Autumn Almanac: Autumn is ageing
6am. The morning has yet to break, the sky still darkened and unrevealing. A robin has just set up a brave solo from the half-leafed wayfarer tree beyond the bedroom window. Once daylight pulls apart the lingering night the morning will be chilly, and a damp film will cling to any exposed surface. By mid …
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Harvest Triumphs
With the Harvest moon lingering bright and resonant in the October skies, the bountiful season of gathering-in is drawing to a close, and the shortening of the days is becoming more obvious with every passing morning. Thoughts are turning, as the leaves turn, to battening the hatches for winter. On the allotment we are taking …
SFN Journal – Autumn Almanac: Hello October
September was a busy month and the weather seemed to take this to heart. Every day would be a mixed up muddled up combinations of sun and rain; if the morning started nice, it would be showers by the evening, and vice-versa. Any last vestiges of summer have been washed out by the rain. This …
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Widdershins: National Poetry Day
Happy #NationalPoetryDay! 28th September is national poetry day, a celebration of a rich culture of language, imagery and expression. I find that autumn is a season steeped in poetic inspiration. In the spirit of 'here's one I made earlier', I thought today would be the perfect occasion to share this poem I wrote inspired by …
Summer Adventure – Wild Rose Country
Alberta, Canada Canada. It seemed a world away. Amp had been several times of course since his parents emigrated in 2008, but I hadn't travelled further than a school trip across the channel to France, in my entire 25years! Many people found this lack of tourism hard to comprehend, their holiday memories being filled with …
Oh my chutney-days!
2017 has been a year of '1sts', of new experiences... some huge, some life changing, some small, some perhaps only of consequence personally so unnoticed by the rest of the world. This weekend it was the turn of one of those smaller moments, but one that is no less inspiring than any others on the …
SFN Journal – Autumn Almanac: Into the Wind
A buzzard, bent-winged into the wind, was hanging against the clouds as I walked up the driveway to work. I had to acknowledge a pang of mild jealousy as I watched him twist his ruffled feathers and bank, realign, then tilt and soar off over the tree tops. Behind me, the jays were raucous in …
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SFN Journal – Autumn Almanac: Return to Autumn
I popped to my Mums house, to exchange a couple of bits of shopping we'd picked up for each other. It is just a 5 minute walk around the corner, but I found myself amazed by the complete image of early autumn offered to me by the remnant hedgerows and woodland edges that soften my …
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SFN Journal – Autumn Almanac: A Sweet Utterance
I have finally seen the bullfinches. All summer long I have heard their whistles from the long hedge that runs parallel to one of the glasshouses (of the plant nursery where I work) but they have remained elusive and disembodied. Today a movement in the bushes attracted my attention as I headed out on my …
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Sussex Field Notes 