17 April 2023 Today, thousands gather to run the annual Boston marathon. For most it will be a day of joy and achievement, time spent strengthening bonds within family groups and a wider community of runners. It is also the ten-year anniversary of the terrorist attack that killed three and injured hundreds in 2013. It... Continue Reading →
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Black Rocks and Sparkling Seas
When I wrote Salt Lick, I used the dam building in woodland streams because I wanted to convey the blessings of Jesse’s childhood, a straightforward lifting from the blessings of my own.
Last week we gathered for my father’s funeral. Though sad, still sad, it was a very happy occasion. He had asked that we lay on a party that he would’ve loved to be at. We certainly did that and he was greatly missed. My brother and sister both spoke at the service and I wrote the piece following this introduction, which was printed in the Order of Service.
My parents divorced many years ago and both went on to have very happy and successful relationships with other wonderful people. They remained great friends. That past and beautifully revised relationship was not marked during the service and I wished that there had been a way to acknowledge it. So, whilst this piece is about my Dad, it is also a way of honouring my Mum, their time together and the wonderful childhood they both made for us.
Black Rocks and Sparkling…
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A walk after rain
My shoes soaked dark in fallen rain. A splash of blue glints, wet ivy. Quickening, I at first mistake it for the feather of a jay. A drop of sky beneath my feet caught softly by the rain.
Fire starters and fuel gatherers
It's the first Monday of the year and I've just had an idea I am hoping will become one of the links between writing and art making that I spoke of in my last post. Through my Middle Distance Arts group, I am going to start an art and writing (and scribbling/sketching/jotting/thinking) journal. I am... Continue Reading →
Some Place Between Nature and Civilisation
I went to the beach today, to breath, to be outside and, because it has been windy, to find driftwood. I use it to make things that I sell; mermaids, shrines, curious objects. It was low tide, the winds of the last few days had churned up a beautiful curd of sea trash and treasure.... Continue Reading →
These beautiful, dull, damp days
One of the Christmas cards we received this year shows a panel from a Fra Angelico fresco, The Chorus of the Prophets. Sixteen figures with gold halos, cupid pouts or extravagant beards look down from discs of cloud that lift them above the chapel congregation. Each makes a gesture or carries a symbolic object. I... Continue Reading →
Letter to my MP
Bit of a random blog post but perhaps one of the topics I feel currently strongest about. I despise this government. Sadly I've also given up my Labour party membership as their aims are not ambitious enough (I DO NOT have any energy for entering a Corbyn/Starmer debate. That is old, stale, overdone shit. That... Continue Reading →
Invitation to the Salt Lick online book launch
Please join me for the online launch of Salt Lick, on publication day, 16 September, 7.30 pm To receive the Zoom link, register here At last something that began years ago, with a song about wild animals in a shopping mall and the idea of a man in prison imagining the inside of his body as a landscape... Continue Reading →
Peace in the Valley Once Again
Who has thought about the songs for their funeral? This post is about one of mine. I think about death often. I write this as I am wandering through one of my favourite places, Woodvale Cemetery in Brighton on England's south coast. As I walk, I think about lost beloveds, mine across the world, and... Continue Reading →
hup, hup, whities, stop sitting on the defensive
If you are a writer, a reader, a poet, a book lover and you are on Twitter, the chances are you will have caught a row about an author called out for racist writing and the many people (of whiteness and establishment) who have stepped in to decry the accusation. People of colour have, with... Continue Reading →
Lulu Allison, contemporary fiction author 