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On walking
It was, apparently, a Webber B fracture. If it had not been for the fact that my ankle was hurting, I would have only been able to guess what part of my body that referred to. In a disarming act of...
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The Court of Kings and Crimsons
On arrival brightly coloured birds greeted us. They flew from the pressing woodland to the gutters, to the garden table and to the fresh leaved trees that hung over the cottage door. They perched in...
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What's real?
It would be fair to say that when I first saw a platypus I got rather excited. Spy satellite images would probably show me hoping from foot to foot and pointing. It’s not that I was getting great...
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Metro Land *
Camberwell.The doors open to let me out, and the smell of coffee in. Not long ago, self-opening door were only found in Star Trek, but now they are commonplace. On hot days the few metres from inside...
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North and South
It’s a touch past six in the morning, in the dog day weekend between Christmas and New Year. It’s the time of year when the only things you can do are ones that are unimportant, but seem to get done...
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Reef, wreck and pier
According to the forecasts there was still 24 hours to enjoy the comfortably warm weather before there would be a run of brutally hot days. Wading into the sea confirmed that tomorrow would be when...
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The circle completed.
The holidays are over.It’s well past New Year.It’s a while until my birthday.It’s a long time until next Christmas.It’s summer now, but soon it will be autumn.Spring seems distant, winter a memory long...
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In an altered state (part 1)
The flight left Australia at 11 am on Wednesday. 20 hours later I had checked in to my hotel at 1 pm on the same day.America. Arizona. Scottsdale. Strange.Asleep.Still in the dark of the night...
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In an Altered State (Part 2)
AwakeFinally I may be awake.I step from the bus into another car park. The landscape around me is red. Red soil, red stones, red pillars and cliffs. If it were painted, it would look unreal. The red...
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Looking for somethings
Northern CardinalIt probably does no harm to have a plan; to have thought about what you would like to happen, and then, with a plan in place, to do as much as you can to make it happen. That seems to...
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The Sound of One Cow Mooing
It’s only when you go back into the country that you realise now noisy cites can be. Even if you wake in the night, it’s rare for the background hum of cars to be silent. You may jolt awake thinking,...
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Around the Island
Night DrivingYou could tell it was going to rain.You could smell it in the musty dankness lifting from the soil.You could feel it in the heavy touch of the wind, fast and strong, around the hedges and...
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A kind of homecoming
Destination.As a kid I would visit London once a year. Leaving in the dark of a Friday evening and returning in the similar gloom of Sunday afternoon. Always in the winter, always in a coach packed...
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The ones that got away
London slips away behind us as we head north and east. Back out through suburbs served and invented by the tube. Slow traffic. Red light disappointment. Green light anticipation. Creeping past...
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The Hills of Doggerland
More things happen at edges than at the centre. Dusk or dawn are better times to uncover secrets than the harsh hours of midday. Spring and autumn bring out the hidden and the slow in ways that...
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The Hills of Doggerland - a photo essay
I've been working in a piece of writing for a competition - hence the lack of words here. I can't publish the competition work until after the end of the judging - so wish me luck and enjoy these...
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Coast to Coast
There were house sparrows bathing in the dust and barn swallows hawking for insects above our heads. Starlings, with their electric crackle voices, chattered on the wires. The low hum of bees and...
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Stone, Wood and Water
As a kid at school a Welsh music teacher told me that a good story was like a fish, with a distinct head, middle and tail. At the time I thought it was clear that he had never seen an eel, but in a...
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Two Kinds of Homecoming
‘Where are you from?’ is a question I am often asked. The thing that makes people ask this does not stand out like a sore thumb, it’s more like it stands out like a sore ear. (I have often been asked...
View ArticleI was not born here*
I was not born here.But I choose to live here.I am, like all but a few, a transplant. An alien come lately to this land. Transported by choice and chance from one end of the world to another, arriving...
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