Not a huge amount to add to proceedings this week, it’s been a week of bobbing around back roads in Norfolk (more than intended on Wednesday due to some bizarre diversions between North Walsham and Coltishall) and being back at work.
However, I did find time to read Matthew Paul’s excellent post on Writing the past. I heartily concur with just about everything in this post, and the stuff I don’t concur with is because I’ve not read Ivor Gurney.
There’s so much to unpack in this post that I can’t do it justice here, but I can vouch for reading HG Wells’ Kipps and The History of Mr Polly. I’ve long believed that both of these novels as well as Tono-Bungay, would make excellent films or TV adaptations that could speak volumes about the era we’re in now.
It’s also a fortuitous post from Matthew as I discovered this week that my maternal great grandfather was a druid. His certificate of membership was among some old paper work my mum had, and even she didn’t know he had been a druid.
He was the man that started our family off as being Freeman of Norwich and, thanks to my Grandmother, I have followed in his footsteps – it’s worth it for the offer of a silk rope to be hung by and the chance to drive sheep through Norwich. Now I may have to become a druid.
I’ve no idea whether this will find its way into a poem at any point, but it’s going to be fun finding out more.
TITLE GIVEAWAY
- People Can Act Like Rivets If You Need Them To
- The Unbearable Lightness of Beading
- Blanket Bans
- Stalking the Back Roads
- The Inventor of Ironing
The week in stats:
21k ran – A slower week post half-marathon.
1 poem accepted
2 poems worked on: Lighters and Waking Up
1 sniff of a draft- I doubt it will amount to much
Thanks, Mat. That’s your summer solstice plans sorted then.
Hi Matthew, yep. I was thinking that and a trip to Eisteddfod.
Thank you for your blog – it was so timely and just spot on.