Over the years, I’ve done a lot of travelling on the railway line between Gloucester and South Wales, which runs for quite a long stretch beside the Severn Estuary.
I usually try to sit with my back to the engine, and preferably a window seat so I can look out at the river. Although the view is very familiar, I can seldom resist snapping a picture or two.
Sometimes it’s of the view back towards Gloucester.
Continue reading “never the same twice”
I seldom write about things in the news, but seeing that the Severn Bridge tolls are to cease tomorrow, it seems a good opportunity to get out a whole collection of photographs I’ve taken of the River over the last few years.
I used to travel back and forth between London and South Wales fairly regularly by road and was very familiar with the queues at the toll booths on the old bridge. Then there was a period when I travelled from Bristol airport late at night and, again, I’d have gone over the old bridge.
Continue reading “taking its toll”
The guy at the pub is right: poems are hard.
Sometimes you have a great idea – the tiny bit of grit with potential to grow into a beautiful pearl – but however much you turn and tweak and worry it, it seems to refuse to gather form and realise its potential.
When this happens, all you can do is put the notes to one side and let your subconscious go on working while you get on and do other things.
Continue reading “creative grit”
Today is midsummer’s day, a fact that always confused me as a child: if June 21st was the first day of summer and the 24th was midsummer, did that mean it was all over on the 27th?
Actually, given British summers, it wasn’t that really all that confusing. Perhaps if I’d known then about the St John’s bonfires, I’d have thought it quite reasonable that you might need to light a fire to keep warm even in late June.
Continue reading “midsummer day”
don't confuse the narrator 