Nights by firelight and owl song

WORDS once SPOKEN now CAPTURED

Jan. 15, 2023

Tuesday Morning, 5.30am (The Voyage of Bran)

Rain and mud are all around us at the moment, but there is wonder there too. The ancient myth of ‘The Voyage of Bran’ helps us to find the extraordinary within the ordinary and (with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel) the bea…
Jan. 8, 2023

When darkness falls (Skating on 'un-time')

Happy New Year! New Years can be exciting times, marking new beginnings, a clean page, awakening dormant dreams and ambitions. However, sometimes it is not always like that. This year, in particular, many face the new year w…
Dec. 11, 2022

Those eyes of old (look out at me)

“Those eyes of old look at me and, through the haze of your futures, I look back at you…” On this freezing December night, snuggle closer to the stove as I reflect on the strangeness of coming across an old photograph of me …
Nov. 13, 2022

Of cormorants and graduands

This week saw the return of the cormorant which prompts a visit to Ernest Ingersoll to find out why they have no voice. A fairly severe reaction to the Covid jab meant that I missed attending this year’s graduation ceremony …
Oct. 30, 2022

Today I held back time

This weekend the clocks change (in the UK). These small markers in our calendars can touch us in deep ways. Join me tonight as we stop the clock, step out of time, and savour together the unspent, untouched hour as the world…
Oct. 16, 2022

Autumn colours the tattered garments of summer

The colours of autumn this year promise to be spectacular and the towpaths are being transformed by the brush of autumn’s artistry. Join us tonight as we drink in some of the sights and ponder why this season can evoke such …
Oct. 9, 2022

Living in Rehoboam's land

For many, these are not easy days in which to live and our futures can appear so uncertain. How do we live through such times? Join us tonight as we listen to some deeper wisdom offered by a magpie and an alder tree. Journal…
Sept. 25, 2022

Church bells among crow song

This week much of the country fell silent for a while and that stillness was the occasion for a chance encounter and finding within the silence the music of bells among crow song. Join us aboard the Erica tonight as we are t…
Sept. 4, 2022

Milky tea and four sugars (Walking with elephants)

There’s a warm welcome awaiting you under the heavy night skies of summer’s hinterlands. Tonight we meet a very special person with a lop-sided smile and who might be able to teach us to walk with elephants. Journal entry : …
Aug. 7, 2022

The Scent of God

Join me this week as we moor on a still August night, under a proud stand of poplars studded with starlight and moonlight. Tonight, we explore the evocative power of scents and smells. Journal entry : 6th August, Saturday. "…
July 31, 2022

Down by the Cattle Pond

There is a spot of ground that is special to me. Perhaps you have one too. They often are not particularly attractive, but somehow they are places we can go to find quietness. Join me to tonight when we visit one of my speci…
July 24, 2022

Let the Stars Sing out your Stories

The forecast hot weather has come and gone, but its psychological, as much as physical, effects feel a bit harder to shift. So join with me tonight as we gaze deeply into the mirrored dome of the night sky and its web of sta…
July 10, 2022

Unfamiliar Mirrors (... and a herring)

Old stories can lift an unfamiliar mirror up to our lives so that we see ourselves anew and as we really are. Tonight, I will tell you an old story. It’s a story about a silvery day of sea fret (mist), rolling ocean waves, e…
July 3, 2022

This one unremarkable dusk

With apologies for sounding like an asthmatic badger, tonight we explore the special qualities of an unremarkable dusk and why we can feel so at peace with it and the darkness it can bring. Journal entry : 28th June, Tuesday…
May 22, 2022

The Colour of Water

I want to describe to you what I saw today, but I can't. We have so many words to describe and represent the most complex of concepts. Why then is it almost impossible to describe something so simple and ordinary as the colo…