OOOOOh Bodran...look wot I found....reminded me of your tree spirits dancing! Have got more will try to put them on....but I think me and photo's are not too good on here...I think I lost yesterday's up a tube somewhere!





We went on a good old yomp yesterday around the hamlets of More and Linley making our way gradually up hill to the Linley Beeches ....an avenue of ancient beech trees supposedly planted by prisoners of war from the Napoleonic wars on the Linley estate. They are visible for miles and are on part of The Shropshire Way route. Amazing! The trees are majestic, artistic, atmospheric and cared for, saplings are planted where age has taken its toll to ensure the avenue will still be here for generations to come.

Phew! That was hard work...is it in the right place ? will it stay put? Send me a couple of tree spirits to sort it out Bodran!

Anyway...today I shall be sharing my two favourite poems..and why they are my favourites.

Way back in the early 1980's there was me 28 years old, a mother of a three year old being incredibly brave about being newly divorced and being supported by mum and dad...mum punctuating every sentence with 'I told you so!' I decided I was going to stand on my own two rather shaking feet and bought a cottage ...a titchy little ex coal miner's cottage, two up, two down plus bathroom and large garden with apple tree. I think my solicitor had thought I was going to stay in the matrimonial home and claim a fortune for the next 14 years at least...well he seemed somewhat fazed at what I decided to do. When the final documents came through there was the normal solicitor type jargonese ....but at the bottom just before 'Yours sincerely' was the following.......

........ I shall arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean rows shall I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

That started my love affair with Ireland and William Butler Yeats. Three years ago we went to The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Ballylee and Coole and it was wonderful. The solicitor? One of my bestest friends that is always there for me...whatever.

Mary Webb..the Shropshire authoress was a tormented soul bless her...I love her novels although many slate them...but I do find her poetry rather melancholy even to the point of funeralistic...(is that a real word?) but there is one that comes to my mind often....

Fairy Led

The fairy people flouted me,

Mocked me, shouted me -

They chased me down the dreamy hill and beat me with a wand,

Within the wood they found me, put spells on me and bound me

And left me at the edge of day in John the miller's pond.

Beneath the eerie starlight

Their hair shone curd-white;

Their bodies were all twisted like a lichened apple tree;

Feather light and swift they moved,

And never one the other loved,

For all were full of ancient dreams and dark designs on me.

With noise of leafy singing

And white wands swinging,

They marched away amid the grass that swayed to let them through.

Between the yellow tansies

Their eyes like purple pansies,

Peered back on me before they passed all trackless in the dew.

Perhaps not the stuff of GCSE English Lit ...but I love it and can see the picture clearly.