“Stones dream of shapes they might become. The sculptor has but to listen.” Thurin-Jon

Like so many other events over the past twelve months, the Learners Eisteddfod 2021 took place via a Zoom link, but it was still a very enjoyable and entertaining evening, a wonderful celebration of Welsh language and culture. This year, I decided to try my hand at a poem for The Chair Competition, Cystadleuaeth y […]

The room is small and simple, just two single beds side by side, and a chest of drawers with a fish tank on top.  The beds are covered with quilted nylon bedspreads and we get shocks and see sparks if we turn over too quickly in the night.  To the side there is a window, […]

A few years ago, whilst on holiday in Hay-on-Wye, the famous book town of Wales, I found myself drawn to a poster in a shop window. It was Jackie Morris’ evocative illustration, ‘The Names of the Otter’’. I was fascinated by its magical incantation of the animal’s river-names, the words tumbling like stones in a […]

There is no present in Wales,
And no future;
There is only the past…
R.S. THOMAS

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.

With Hallowe’en just around the corner, I’m taking a look at the dark and mysterious tales surrounding two of our longest living and most iconic trees, the mighty oak and the venerable yew, both of which feature large in the collective mythologies of our islands, and in particular, I’ll be shining a light on some […]

For me, there is no better way of whiling away a few hours on a gilded Autumn afternoon than to wander through the quiet country lanes and by-ways of my home in North East Wales in search of fruits and berries.  At this time of year our trees and hedgerows are heavy with their harvest […]

Today is the first of September, and it’s brought with it a good drying day. Cobwebs and bed sheets fly in the wind as fleets of cumulus clouds billow in full sail across the blue of a fresh-washed sky. I’ve been out gathering apples from the tree to join those already collected, the heady, intoxicating […]

Together with a small group of enthusiastic amateur botanists, I could recently be found seeking out the wild flowers of Halkyn Mountain in Flintshire with the Clwydian Hills in the distance before us, their blue and violet outline just breaking the soft grey of a low-slung, overcast sky. We were attending ‘The Beginners Guide to […]