14 May 2022 ... #dylanday

 

 

Greetings to all on #dylanday 14 May 2022.

I thought I would post a rather different 'first' picture for Dylan Day this time. It was taken fifteen years ago, and shows me trying to photograph the Writing Shed that perches somewhat precariously on the cliff above the Dylan Thomas Boathouse in Laugharne. 

This is what the Writing Shed looked like from the outside in 2001:

 

... and in 2007:

Dylan Thomas aficionado, Lidia Chiarelli, a Charter Member of the international movement Immagine e Poesia, has prepared a Dylan Day presentation for 2022, featuring art and poetry from many different corners of the globe. You can find my Picture-Poem contribution, Tide Notes, in the section entitled  ...

Haiku - Haiga - Picture-Poems for Dylan Thomas 

... which you can find by (clicking the link immediately above and) scrolling down until you reach what I believe is the seventh tribute. 

* * * 

Love The Words 

eBook Anthology

I have just heard that my poem, 'Blubber, Fin and Tails', has been selected for inclusion in the 2022 #dylanday international eBook prepared by Infinity Books, after a judging process by Hannah Ellis and Mab Jones. There were about 400 entries from which about 50 have been chosen.  

* * *

My 2021 first full collection, Driftwood by Starlight (The Seventh Quarry Press, £6.99/$10 - see here), contains poems set in various places around the UK and beyond. I lived in Swansea, home town of Dylan Thomas for almost twenty years, a fact reflected in my poem, 'Rhossili: Writing The Worm' (p.38).  

Marking #DylanDay 2021

 

Some of you will know that I lived in Swansea for twenty years, so #DylanDay is always an opportunity for me to remember visits to Cwmdonkin Park and Number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (plaque above). 

 

I also like to recall carefree hours spent on the waterfront at Laugharne. You can see the Dylan Thomas Boathouse in the photo above and Dylan's Writing Shed perched somewhat precariously on the cliff in the photos below. 

 

 

There is often a Grey Heron on the shore, and not infrequently a Curlew or two.

 

 

This bird's eye view of Laugharne (below), with its tidal estuary, castle, boathouse and writing shed, brings back a number of particular memories, including a day when I attended a Creative Writing workshop facilitated by Aeronwy Thomas as part of the Laugharne Festival. 

 

The southern and western areas of Wales are not, of course, the only locations linked to the poet. Dylan visited New York on four occasions in the 1950s. I spent a few days there in 2012, enjoying a meal in Greenwich Village and the long elevator ride up the Empire State Building as the light began to fade. 

 

This year I am delighted to have a poem on Lidia Chiarelli's Immagine e Poesia #DylanDay website and also to have a letter addressed to DT and a poem in a new anthology called Dear Dylan, edited by Anna Saunders and Ronnie Goodyer, and published by Indigo Dreams Publishing. 

Dear Dylan is published today, and you can purchase a copy and read more about it here. I am looking forward to the 'Dear Dylan from the Birthplace' Zoom event this evening. 

Places of Poetry

Serpentine lectern, Church of St Grade, Cornwall

I have been hoping to 'pin a poem' on the Places of Poetry map for some time, and finally achieved my aim this afternoon (only to discover that my husband, David Gill, had pipped me to the post by a few months!).

The map shadows an earlier poetry project which took the guise of a 15,000 line poem, Poly-Olbion, by Michael Drayton in the seventeenth century. You can read about the new map here, and you can read Drayton's epic if you follow this link to a University of Exeter website about the current project.

The new interactive online map is full of markers, representing poems relating to the sites in question. The map remains live for two more days for those who would still like to pin a poem of their own (please check the conditions if you do this). Thereafter it will remain online for web-users to enjoy as a reading resource. If you find a poem you enjoy, I feel sure the poet who penned it would appreciate a social media-style 'like'.

I recall submitting a northern (Lewis Chessmen) poem, number 185, to the StAnza Poetry Map for Scotland in 2015. And this time, on the new map largely representing England and Wales, I have zoomed down almost as far south as I could go to small cove on The Lizard in Cornwall to post my 2019 poem here. I do not actually mention lecterns in my poem, but the serpentine one in the photo above comes from the same Cornish peninsula and can be seen today in the beautiful church of St Grade.

I mentioned David Gill's poem in this post: you will find it posted along Hadrian's Wall - here. And, on the subject of the Wall, you might also enjoy Paul Farley's Places of Poetry blog post - here.

Green Moment (1): Organic Fortnight - and the Eden Project

Welcome! | Croeso!

This post is part of
Crafty Green Poet's Blogfest
to mark the Soil Association's
ORGANIC FORTNIGHT
3-17 September 2010

Thank you,
Juliet,
for arranging this enterprise.

"It is poetic that a china clay pit, so Cornish in essence, has been given another life.
It is a constant source of inspiration for me and continues to get better and better.”

Anthony Eyton R.A.
Artist in Residence,
The Eden Project

I wonder when you last had a 'green' moment.

I vividly recall my first visit to the Space Age biomes
of the Eden Project in Cornwall, back in 2002.
The structures alone were impressive.

However, I was particularly struck by the 'recycling work'
that had given the old China Clay pit a new lease of life
as a place in which people could come to enjoy themselves
and learn a great deal about the world around them.

The colours of the plants were vibrant.
The scents were intoxicating.
You could feel droplets of humidity on your skin.
The organic coffee in the café was delicious.
Birdsong resounded through the jungle!

I was so captivated by Eden that I came home and wrote a long (semi-fantasy semi-autobiographical) poem about my visit, under the tutelage of Susan Richardson, as part of a Disability Arts Cymru project. The poem, 'The Cheerful Chocoholic Woman Goes Exploring', was published in Hidden Dragons | Gwir y Grymus (Parthian Books 2004).

The poem revolves around my (imaginary) Biome conversation with a Praying Mantis (and here), who makes me appreciate the qualities of our fragile earth in a new light - as you will see from the following quotation:

He tells her all about the concept of fair trade,
about sustainable forests and water aid.
‘I have seen lots of wonders, but it’s time to depart,’
sighs the chocoholic woman, with a burdensome heart.
‘I envy those Aztecs with their cocoa bean brew,
mixed with spice from the chilli to warm them right through!’

The Chocoholic Woman finally arrives home, flinging 'chocoholic chippings' from her 'chocoholic heels', only to discover with a sense of panic that the 'snowy peaks of chocolate treats' beside her favourite chair are not, in fact, organic...

You may like to read about:

• The Eden Project Real Cool Futures Project, with a case study on Clio Turton who has worked as a manager at the Press Office of the Soil Association.
• The Eden Project Blog
• The Eden Project Shop (how about some Christmas present ideas?)
• Why Organic? - from the Soil Association
  

If chocolate is your thing, you may like:

• Divine
• The Divine Chocolate Blog
• The Divine Deep Dark Chocolate Competition (still time to enter)

If you enjoy poetry, you may like:

• The winning poems of the 2009 Divine Chocolate Writing Competition (judge, Anthony Horowitz)
• Organic Poetry (N.B. this site is about organic - or free-form - writing, rather than organic produce)
• An obituary (1994) in The Independent for Jack Clemo, who found inspiration in the china clay pits.

Enjoy Organic Fortnight ...

and don't forget to visit
Crafty Green Poet

and

here

the other participating blogs, linked to the site.

And finally ... if you like the thought of a Praying Mantis, you may enjoy Naquillity's post about a Walking Stick here.

Magazine Moment (15): The Seventh Quarry

Swansea Bay from Mumbles,
with the Swansea-Cork ferry

I was delighted when the Summer 2010 edition [issue 12] of The Seventh Quarry arrived today, featuring an international spread of work from Wales, England, Holland, Romania, Italy, Catalonia, Israel, South Africa, Canada and America.

The magazine includes an interview with one of the leading Catalonian poets, Dr August Bover. Dr Kristine Doll poses interesting questions about the 'difficult to understand' label that attaches itself to the art of poetry.* I had the privilege of meeting August at a stimulating and memorable workshop in the Dylan Thomas Centre some months ago. Allan Peterson appears on p.5 as the issue's poet in profile.

The magazine opens with a poetry sequence including a moving piece, A Circle of Meadow, by Vince Clemente, The Seventh Quarry's Consulting Editor for America. A stylish concrete poem, Elephant, by Dave Lewis from Wales is embedded with 'memories' and 'stories' from the watering holes. Gerald England's witty contribution seems to me to combine the lazy dog pangram with a kind of abcedarium. I much enjoyed Gillian Drake's evocative poem, Lost - and am delighted that my poem, The Women of Linear B, has been included on p.11.

In Chapter 1 - Swansea Bay we are treated to an excerpt from a forthcoming Cross-Cultural Communications publication, Love For Ever Meridian; Finding Dylan Thomas in the 21st Century by John Dotson, who enjoyed 'taking in the shore-places of Dylan the boy' on a recent visit to South Wales.

The penultimate page of this issue carries a description of the latest Poet to Poet chapbook, Nightwatch by Aeronwy Thomas and Maria Mazziotti Gillan, in the series published jointly by Cross-Cultural Communications and The Seventh Quarry Press ... of which more perhaps in a future post.

Thank you, Peter, once again for another bumper edition!


* Postscript: On the subject of the meaning of poetry, there is a substantial article entitled by The Virtue of Verse by George Watson, fellow at St John's College, Cambridge in the current Times Higher Education Supplement (29 July-4 Aug 2010) - available online, with livelink highlighted above.

***

N.B. If you would like to take out a subscription
to The Seventh Quarry poetry magazine,
details can be found here.

Magazine Moment (14): Cultural Horizon Magazine (Romania)

A recent package from Romania!

I was delighted to receive the current copy of Contemporan Orizont Literar (Annul III - Nr.3 (17) / Mai-Junie 2010) through the post from Bucharest. Mihai Cantuniari is Director of this international - and often multi-lingual - publishing enterprise, with Daniel Dragomirescu as Editor-in-Chief. The magazine's new Foundation is a media partner of MTTLC, which comes under the guidance of Professor Lidia Vianu at the University of Bucharest.

This edition contains 60 packed and well presented pages of:

• articles
• poetry
• critical perspectives
• feedback
  
• photographs,
  

in addition this year's second extra A4 supplement, El Boletin del Autor, representing Orizonturi Literare Spaniole, and featuring Pedro Javier Martin Pedros. Pedros is interviewed by Victor Mrata Cortado on the intriguing subject, 'Poezia este şi va fi mereu necesară' | 'Poetry is and will always be necessary'. Pedros considers those closet writers who 'write like angels', but whose words rarely see the light of day. What is it that makes us write? Why, I wonder, are some writers so reluctant to admit that they have secret scripts hidden away - in a 'celebrity-culture' world in which others are desperate to flaunt their work?

The main body of the magazine begins with 'A Preface to the Passions of Daniel' (editor-in-chief) by the magazine's Director. Cantuniari pays tribute to Daniel Dragomirescu, whose dreams, visions and tenacity of spirit have made the magazine what it is today, by forging ahead and 'co-opting a series of precious translators', under Alina-Olimpia Miron. Daniel has persevered to ensure that CHM has gone from strength to strength, rising to new heights and inspiring readers (and writers) from more and more corners of the globe. I am not alone in acknowledging a debt to the editor's cultural foresight.

Thank you, Daniel, for the opportunities that have arisen - opportunities to make new friends, to gain fresh perspectives on the multi-faceted world of the Arts, and to learn more about Romania itself.

This edition is definitely 'international' in outlook. The following countries are represented by those who have contributed:

• Romania
• Spain
• Estonia
• Nepal
• USA
• Israel
• Finland

Britain, I am glad to say, is not forgotten - thanks to a section on the Feedback pages by Chris Kinsey. I interviewed Chris, BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year 2008, in an earlier edition in my occasional column, Dialoguri Galeze.

Do take a look at the magazine site here. New subscribers are always welcome - and the next edition including the latest in my interview series from Wales will be available soon!

• MAGAZINE PRICE: 12 EUROS | 15 DOLLARS PER COPY (SHIPPING INCLUDED). PayPal details to the right of the magazine page if you click here.
• The next issue is almost out, which will include contributions from Wales, including my interview with Susan Richardson and poetry by Byron Beynon. You can find the details here - and may perhaps like to order a copy for yourself!
  

Poetic Places (5): Out in the Wild

Gannet flying inland from the Achiltibuie area,
north of Ullapool
[please click to enlarge]

I have just mounted a post on my new Wild and Wonderful blog about a Buzzard we saw in the Quiraing region of Skye. I have been thinking a lot about wild places and wilderness since we returned from Scotland, so it was a pleasant surprise to read Professor Morley's post about walking and writing. You can find it here: 'Rebounding Flowerheads'. His piece makes special reference to Scotland and the West Country.

• My Loch Coruisk post, with book suggestion etc.
• A 'wild' book I really enjoy is Britain and Ireland's Best Wild Places by Christopher Somerville
• Turnstone blog about walking and writing
  

Poetic Places (4): Loch Coruisk, Skye

The view from Elgol,
looking across Loch Scavaig towards Loch Coruisk

It gave me a real boost to return from Skye (nursing what seems to be a fractured ulna... final diagnosis still pending) to find that my poem, 'Turner's Loch Coruisk, Skye' [24/2009] had been awarded 2nd Prize as a result of Readers' Votes in issue 141 of Reach Poetry (Indigo Dreams Publishing, editors Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling). Thank you to all who voted and to Ronnie and Dawn for the cheque!

Incidentally, Wendy Webb's poem about (David and me at) Loch Coruisk appears in her volume, A Mermaid's Tale (Wendy Webb Books 2010). You can read more here on my Land&Lit blog.

Sadly, my injuries meant that we were unable to take the boat over Loch Scavaig to Loch Coruisk on this occasion, but we had a couple of memorable visits to Elgol. If you would like to see what we enjoyed watching on the sea loch, you might care to click on this link, which will take you to my new blog, 'Wild and Wonderful', about the natural world.

P.S. On the recommendation of the Quaerentia blog [and here], I took a copy of Robert MacFarlane's book, The Wild Places with me as holiday reading. I injured my dominant arm on our first full day on the island, so my reading plans have been delayed due to difficulty in holding the volume or turning the pages. Watch this space! I know the book contains a small section on Loch Coruisk.

Magazine Moment (11): TIPS for Writers 77

The latest issue [77] of TIPS for Writers (Wendy Webb Books) sports a fine watercolour drawing of Norwich Cathedral on the cover, from the hand of John Tatum. It is a view I know well and love dearly, from my teenage years in Norfolk.

The magazine begins with congratulations to Tina Negus, 2010 winner of the Margaret Munro Gibson Competition for a Comic Poem, adjudicated by Alison Chisholm. In this week in which Matt Merritt of Polyolbion mused (after the appearance of a Marmora Warbler on a certain hill beginning with 'B' near Abergavenny) on the pairing of Blorenge with orange, it was a delight to read about the Green-backed Turple who rhymes with purple! Congratulations, Tina, on a worthy win. I defy anyone to read the poem with a straight face...

Congratulations also to Peter Davies and Pam Gidney, whose poems took 2nd and 3rd place respectively. Incidentally if shelled creatures are your 'thing', you will also enjoy The Turtle by Geoff Williams on p.13. Voice of the Turtle by Norman Bissett on p.17 turns out to be about a Turtle Dove.

Despite the very English cover scene, the issue has a European flavour to it. Wendy has written Fib and Pleiades poems about Italy, and I enjoyed reading Norman Bissett's 'jaffa-hued' interpretation of the Duomo in Florence. The wry humour of Schoolboy Poet by Gerald Hampshire brings us back to the tower blocks and pigeons of home.

In more Romantic mode, we find Claire Knight's majestic Summer Moon sonnet, with its 'owl in silence on the wing'. The issue ends with a Foreword by Pamela Trudie Hodge to Wendy's new publication, How the Mermaid Lost her Voice, and a review of the Mermaid series by Bernard Jackson.

TIPS for Writers costs £3 per issue and is a print magazine. eTIPS is a free pdf which can be delivered to your inbox on request. You can find Wendy's email here if you would like to receive the monthly ezine or would like to take out a subscription to the full print magazine.

Carnival Time (7): Guardian Hay Festival

We had a terrific day at Hay yesterday, despite overcast skies. We arrived and I enjoyed a Fair Trade coffee and an enormous Danish pastry to set me up for the morning. We had tickets for the CADW talk by John Davies (A History of Wales), and for Richard Perceval Graves at the Housman Society event. Sadly for the organisers, there were not as many festival-goers as usual. Perhaps it was the rain or perhaps the recession.

While I was browsing in the Poetry Bookshop, I heard that it had featured in a Telegraph article (20 April 2010) on the best independent bookshops in Britain - which you can read here. I hope the Guardian podcast will be posted soon...

It is always fun to wander round the site. We took a box of books to the the Oxfam stall, and were given a couple of festival event tickets as a 'thank you'. The festival bookshop has book signings and an amazing range of books on subjects ranging from the nature of clouds to the objects in the British Museum.


We had a picnic lunch between events, and then set off on the shuttle bus to visit the bookshops in town. The Poetry Bookshop is always my first port of call. On this occasion there was great excitement as Guardian reporters were in the process of making a podcast. We have just watched Bright Star (a compelling and unusual film with amazing photography), and was delighted to buy a book on Keats and his circle.


So why would I recommend a visit to the Hay Festival? Well, for a start, it would be good to see people sitting in these empty chairs (photo below)!

Seriously, it makes a great day out for everyone and is a good place to meet up with friends. There is no admission to the site, though there is a charge for the car parks. Our car park fee gave us shuttle bus tickets, so once we had parked, we could leave the car all day and explore the festival and the shops in town with ease. The festival organisers take fair trade, recycling and green issues pretty seriously.

• Best Festival Tweet
• Polyolbion: Birdwatching poets may be celebrating... (I have posted this here simply because Dr John Davies alluded to the view from the Blorenge in his CADW talk at Hay... Thank you, Matt).
  

Poetry on Display (1): Seaweed from Dylan's home town

Mumbles Pier, Swansea, Wales

The Dylan Thomas Centre,
Swansea, Wales

I was delighted to learn today from Wilda Morris of the Illinois State Poetry Society in the USA that one of my Epulaeryu poems, Seaweed from the Home of Dylan Thomas, had been on display alongside other 'Food Poems' in the Lisle Public Library from March 27, 2010.

The poem is about laverbread, a local Swansea speciality. Its chief ingredient is seaweed (porphyra umbilcalis). It can be bought in Swansea market in small plastic bags. Many people like to fry it - sometimes with bacon - for breakfast. I have tasted it once so far, and would happily try it again.

• Laverbread cakes
  

Conservation Corner (5): Green Zoos - wild, woolly and poetic

(These flamingos are not in the zoos mentioned,
but I thought their stately poses resembled poetic installations!)

A number of wild animals are to share their USA zoo quarters with installation works of poetry to raise awareness of wildlife conservation. The project, under the auspices of the Poets' House, is called The Language of Conservation. Poets' House, the national literary centre and poetry library in New York City, has teamed up with five zoos in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Little Rock, Jacksonville, and Chicago.

A $1 million National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services has helped the project to get off the ground. You can read more about it here and here. There is a great photograph of Mark Doty sharing a poetic moment with an elephant at Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. Little Rock Zoo is one of the institutions taking part.

Magazine Moment (8): Cultural Horizon Magazine (Romania)

'Horizons?
If not horizons,
then at least a few cracks
through which light pierces'

Maria Dolores Garcia Pastor
on writing her novel (details below)

I was delighted to receive a package from Bucharest, Romania this week. It contained the latest copy of 'Contemporan Orizont Literar'/'Cultural Horizon Magazine' [Annul III - Nr. 1 (15)/January- March 2010]. The publishing concern responsible for the venture is a media partner of MTTLC at the University of Bucharest. Magazine editor-in-chief, Daniel Dragomirescu, and his team of translators do a terrific job in producing a publication that is largely bilingual, always thought-provoking and refreshingly global in outlook.

The current issue contains features and poems from many corners of the world, for example...

Romania
The opening article, 'Eminescu and Postmodernism' by Daniel Dragomirescu considers the impact of the hugely influential Eminescu on those who followed him, and on the contemporary poetry scene in Romania. But what of the future? Dragomirescu raises some concerns. Eminescu's 'Evening Star' found its way in to the Guinness Book of Records as the longest love poem in the world. Readers will not be surprised to learn that the gymnast, Nadia Comaneci, also appears in the 2009 edition of this popular volume.

Nigeria
We move from Romania to Africa for Abiola Olatunde's feature on the theatre in Nigeria, which is, she writes, 'on the wane' at a time when interest in film and video is soaring.

UK
I enjoyed Anne Stewart's poem, 'Winter Loving', prefaced with an epigraph from Elizabeth Jennings. Stewart's image of the 'whale-song of the trees' is one that will stay with me.

USA
Peggy Landsman the in USA shares an update on her first full-length poetry collection and on a subsequent chapbook. Watch this space!

Spain
This edition of CHM comes with a supplement, featuring the Spanish publication, 'El Boletin Del Autor'. There is an interview with Maria Dolores Garcia Pastor, the author of El susurro del los árboles ('The Murmur of Trees'), a novel about Chile. The interview has been conducted by Victor Morata Cortado.

... and back to Romania
Finally, there is the text of an enlightening conversation in the Dialouri Culturale/Cultural Dialogue series, between Professor Lidia Vianu and Mrs Ioana Ieronim, former students in the Pitar Moş English Department. I supplemented my postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) with a TEFL qualification (back in the 1980s), with a view to teaching English in international contexts - and was fascinated to read Professor Vianu's memories of her time as a student and later as a teacher of English. She speaks about her best-selling work, English as a Key (Teora 1993/2005/2006/2008). Professor Vianu recalls a period during her student days when she experienced 'a desperate hunt for books'. I would like to think that books will somehow continue to be widely treasured as tools of learning in university circles and beyond...

Why not visit the CHM site: you will find out a bit more about the current state of international culture - from a Romanian perspective!

• The Eminescu exhibition in the Romanian Parliament Palace
• On the subject of Welsh Dialogues/Dialoguri Galeze, you may like to know that Byron Beynon's latest book, 'Nocturne in Blue' (Lapwing Press) has just been published. I attended a launch at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, Wales, last Friday.
  

Poetic People (34): Ted Hughes

Former Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes is to have a memorial in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.

His memorial will join memorials and tombs commemorating - among many others - Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Blake, Wordsworth, Gray, Shelley, Burns, Tennyson, Masefield and Betjeman.

Hughes is remembered for many aspects of his life and work - not least for his marriage to Sylvia Plath. His poem 'The Thought-Fox' (and here) is probably my favourite poem by this poet, and also my favourite ars poetica piece. I have always treasured a slim Faber volume called 'Poetry in the Making'. It is an anthology by this past Laureate 'of Poems and Programmes from Listening and Writing' for the BBC programmes for schools.

• Hughes on the Poetry Archive
• Frieda Hughes
  

Poetic People (33): Byron Beynon - book launch

The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea
(above)
launches Byron Beynon’s latest collection,

Nocturne in Blue

on Friday 19 March at 7pm.
All are welcome.

Swansea poet and lecturer Byron Beynon has had poems poems published in many publications including Agenda, Poetry Salzburg Review, Planet, The French Literary Review, Quadrant (Australia) and the Istanbul Literary Review.

Byron's collections include: The Girl in the Yellow Dress, The Restaurant of Mud and Cuffs (Rack Press).

Nocturne in Blue is published by Lapwing Publications (Belfast).

Byron is a former co-editor of Roundyhouse Magazine. You can find Byron reading his poems on the PoetCasting site.

You can read my interview with Byron for the Romanian magazine from Bucharest, Contemporan Orizont Literar/Contemporary Horizon Magazine, here.

Poetic Places (3): Hiawatha Country

'From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes...'

From: The Song of Hiawatha
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1807-1882

If you are a fan of Longfellow's Hiawatha poem, do take a look at the amazing photograph of the Minnehaha Falls on Ecobirder's fabulous blog here.

The full text of the poem can be located here.

Poetic People (32): Alex Pryce

Alex Pryce, director of PoetCasting, is Writer in Residence for the month of March at Incwriters. Do take a look at the link, and be sure to think about adding a favourite small poetry press as part of the Save Our Presses Campaign.

Photo: Wired for Sound - Alex Pryce (left) with me in the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea, last autumn.

Seasonal Spotlight on Aberglasney (2): February 2010

I thought it might be interesting to compare the following photos with ones taken on 9 June 2009 at Aberglasney, the garden lost in time and home of the poet, John Dyer, Carmarthenshire, Wales, UK. So this is a second batch of occasional seasonal photographs.

'Hear the thrush, while all is still,
Within the groves of Grongar Hill'

John Dyer (d.1757)

• The House at Aberglasney (partly open to the public, often with exhibitions)

• The view from Aberglasney to Grongar Hill (the view from my favourite seat)

• The Upper Walled Garden (with Celtic design flowerbeds)

• The stream in Pigeon House Wood - my apologies: my eyes alighted on the robin, and I forgot to photograph the stream!

• The Cloister Garden: an early crocus
  

• The stream in Bishop Rudd's Walk

Invertebrate Life

• I did not take any photographs of invertebrates this time. I noticed a number of snails in the stone-work. I looked for insect life on the edge of the pond in The Pool Garden, but did not see anything. (We have seen newts and an eel here: my photo of an eel at Aberglasney is here)
  

Bird life

• This magnificent Red Kite was circling overhead.

• I think this was a Green Finch. It was hard to see, right in the tree top - but its yellow feathers glinted in the sunlight.

• I guess it was not surprising that there was no sign of the Pied Flycatcher we saw last June.

Plants

• Snowdrops (and at top of post)
  

• Early signs of a Bluebell
  
  
  
• Primroses
  

... And finally, for Aberglasney's literary links (Wordsworth, Gillian Clarke...), you may like to click here. I hope you have enjoyed this virtual visit to the garden.

Postscript
We drove home via the castle at Dryslwyn, where we saw a Nuthatch...

and a Tree Creeper...