Month: December 2022

The Winter Hedgerow

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wendycatpratt's avatarWendy Pratt

Photo by pimpoapo on Pexels.com

I’m just back from a very wintry dog walk with my very slow and elderly dog. There is something to be said for the slow walk and the honesty of bad weather, how a really good soaking freezes you so deeply it’s like it’s cleaned the very bones of you. And going so slowly allows for a close examination of the landscape; not just the valley and the hills around you, but of the landscape with a small L, the place where we exist every day, the areas that, in some ways, become background. I think of hedgerows like that. Hedgerows are a constant in the landscape, acting as dividers, boundary lines, shade for livestock. They sew the lands together, tracking across the countryside and lining the lanes. The hedgerows around my village feel timeless, and some are in fact likely to be boundary lines…

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Join me every day this December. #RewildTheMundane and/or #ReMundaneTheWild. Fourth Day. NOTE: NO WILD THINGS MUST DIE IN THESE SCENARIOS. I look forward to your draft poetry/short fiction/visual images. Go leftfield and imagine a a cup of tea as a wild animal or plant, imagine a wild animal or plant as a cup of tea, or other domestic object, or task. Email me or add your contribution to this link.

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Leftfield Questions:

How is a butterfly like a cup of tea?

How do I you rewild a cup of tea?

What domestic task would a living butterfly undertake indoors?

Rewilding the mundane or remundaning the wild!

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Stine Writing and Miniatures's avatarStine Writing

Join here for Paul Brookes’ challenge
Here is some other interesting information: https://www.treehugger.com/surprising-badger-facts-4863670

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Join me every day this December. #RewildTheMundane and/or #ReMundaneTheWild Day Three. NOTE: NO WILD THINGS MUST DIE IN THESE SCENARIOS. I look forward to your draft poetry/short fiction/visual images. Go leftfield and imagine a kettle as a wild animal or plant, imagine a wild animal or plant as a kettle, or other domestic object, or task. Email me or add your contribution to this link.

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Leftfield Questions

How is a badger like a  kettle?

What mundane task would a living badgerdo in a home?

How would a kettle be rewilded?

NationalGriefAwarenessWeek Day Two. Please join Daniel O’Grady an I in marking this week every day. I will feature your draft published/unpublished poetry/short prose/artworks about grief. Please include a short third person bio.

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A Bad Year

A whole year has passed since I held my dad’s hand and talked to him, told him how much I love him, kissed him on his cool and smooth forehead, said goodbye. I’ve wept pints of tears and looked for traces of his existence in the woods, paths and spaces he enjoyed. My grief feels pitiful alongside my mums own loss of her life partner, her friend and companion.
The awful period while he was suffering the effects of Myeloma and the treatment still casts its shadow on our memories. Even though during this period there were islands of smiles and happiness, the tide of despair rose higher up until what remained were the jagged rocks. Pleading looks from a face asking for help, to be taken out of the hospital ward and home. Home to die in more peaceful and comfortingly familiar surroundings. A wish we couldn’t grant.
Dad was, is, my hero, it sounds cliched but he is and always will be. My inspiration. Encouraging us to do things that make us happy, because if we’re not happy then how do we provide happiness for the people we love and cherish?
In whatever I did I wanted to make him proud and give back some of the love and happiness he and mum, gave me.
I continue to look for him in my landscape. In the local countryside he wandered through so much. In the places further afield in which we shared time. In the activities we did together and in parallel.
As we all do, I miss him every day, but can enjoy the time I spend with him when dreaming.

-Daniel O’Grady

Bio and Links

-Daniel O’Grady

is a Plant Manager at a Chemical Manufacturing site who enjoys writing about whatever comes to mind each day, capturing his thoughts for future reference.
He draws his inspiration from the semi rural environment he lives and works in, the woodland he wanders through and the lanes where he enjoys running and cycling.
He also enjoys photography where he tries to share the beauty of the world as he sees it. His ambition is to write a fictional story based on his path through grief, maybe retirement will allow more time, maybe it won’t.

Drop in by Paul Waring

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Nigel Kent's avatarNigel Kent - Poet and Reviewer

I have great pleasure in inviting Paul Waring to drop in today, a poet whom I have admired for some time.

Thank you Nigel for inviting me to drop in and write about Melt, a poemfrom my latest collection Muckle Anima, a Dreich 2022 ‘Classic Chapbook’ competition winner.

I wrote my first poem in 1990. Before this, I spent much of the 1980’s writing lyrics and singing in a number of Liverpool bands. Between 1996-2016 I wrote almost no poetry, largely due to my work commitments as a clinical psychologist.

Melt started out as a title and a broad idea to depict the sense of madness that falling in love can induce; the state that can result in us being almost oblivious to everything else in our lives. Writing this drop-in for Nigel brought to mind a song I wrote in the early 1980’s – also about…

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Re-wild the mundane day 2

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Jane Dougherty's avatarJane Dougherty Writes

In answer to Paul Brookes’ hedgehog and tea towel questions which you can see here (WP can feck off with it’s stupid questions).

Once were tea towels

smart-checked and striped,
holes now united by threadbare,
unravelled warp and weft,
linted and loose-threaded,
shoe-cleaners, floor-wipers,
the unnameable rags
that line forgotten places.

~Not all forgotten, not by all~

a hedgehog home, deep in the pile
of cracked roof tiles and bricks,
beam splinters ancient plaster,
is lined with linen, embroidered with oak leaves,
spiked and span, gathered by prickles,
wind holes filled with moss,
a winter sleep away from spring.

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Join me every day this December. #RewildTheMundane and/or #ReMundaneTheWild. Second Day. NOTE: NO WILD THINGS MUST DIE IN THESE SCENARIOS. I look forward to your draft poetry/short fiction/visual images. Go leftfield and imagine a teatowel as a wild animal or plant, imagine a wild animal or plant as a teatowel, or other domestic object, or task. Email me or add your contribution to this link.

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Leftfield Questions

How is a hedgehog like a teatowel?

What mundane task would a living hedgehog do in a home?

How would a teatowel be rewilded?

Once were tea towels

smart-checked and striped,
holes now united by threadbare,
unravelled warp and weft,
linted and loose-threaded,
shoe-cleaners, floor-wipers,
the unnameable rags
that line forgotten places.

~Not all forgotten, not by all~

a hedgehog home, deep in the pile
of cracked roof tiles and bricks,
beam splinters ancient plaster,
is lined with linen, embroidered with oak leaves,
spiked and span, gathered by prickles,
wind holes filled with moss,
a winter sleep away from spring.

-Jane Dougherty

Night warden

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Jane Dougherty's avatarJane Dougherty Writes

A poem for Paul Brookes’ challenge to re-wild the mundane and/or re-mundane the wild. Today we’re dealing with foxes (or toasters). If you’d like the join in, the details are here.
I’d like to add that most of the elements of this story are true.
Franz Marc provided the illustration.

Night warden

Where the kitchen stove glows
still warm, cats dream,
and mice dance with stray crumbs,
nudge loose-fitting lids,
chew holes in the mesh
of the food safe.

Padding soft, almost silent,
the fox in the attic descends
the cold stairs, grey-ghost,
in search of fat mice,

where cats stretch in sleep,
in the stove-glow,
their dreams full of tiny squeals.

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