Rebel Rebel

The theme of the writing workshop was “Rebel” and was a part of the Scottish Book Trust’s plans to get people writing.

“Rebellion incites opposition and change, allows us to find our own individual voices and inspires future generations to challenge convention and expectation.”

I wondered what I could actually write about in terms of rebellion – I am not a rebel. I am a rule follower. If there were no rules I would have to make some up just to feel comfortable.

There were a little more than a half dozen participants, a large scroll of paper on the floor and marker pens. The venue was a church building that had been converted to a second hand bookshop. Spiral staircases, galleries and stained glass windows housed shelf after shelf of books.

I’d been to Berlin last week and seen the memorial at Bebelplatz, the public square in the centre of Berlin, the site of the notorious Nazi book burning in 1933. A glass flagstone looks down on empty bookcases.

It was a jolt o be sitting in a chair surrounded by bookcases full of books. I had never given it much thought before. The things we take for granted.

I don’t quite know where most of the folks had been but they were all into the Jacobite rebellion and the Battle of Culloden. That’s not where I was.

The first exercise after a warm up stimulus was to evoke a place. A place you’ve actually been to, and which you associate with a rebellion of any sort. Now I have been around Culloden Battlefield a number of times. There are marker and flags and the names of various clans. The Kerrs are there – fighting on the “wrong” side.

My own train of thought was a personal one.

I have a bad memory about some events. I think I remember then as memories only because I have been told the stories so often that I have made them mine. I’ve seen a photograph and woven my account of what happened in the picture.  There’s a photo in an album of three girls in white dresses dancing on the front lawn outside a house. I am one of the girls and it was taken the morning of our First Communion. I remember the dresses were the same, sewn from the same pattern. I’m not sure I had ever worn something that wasn’t a hand-me-down, so the dress was my dress, made for me, worn by me. It must have been a warm day. No rain. No hand knitted cardigans. I suppose if I put my mind to it I could work out how old I was. Not a teenager.

While the three girls were dancing on the lawn, showing off their white dresses, there was a boy standing off to one side. He was not dancing.

Dressed in neat trousers and a white shirt, perhaps even a tie, he was scowling. Brows dark and lowered, a stubborn jut of a chin. Fists bunched, fingers pressed into his palms.

My brother, Michael, announced that he wasn’t going to go through with it. He had no intention of taking First, last, anything in between, communion. He didn’t believe in God and to go through with it would be hypocritical. He didn’t say it like that, he just made his stand.

There might have been an argument. There might have been pleading. There might have been tears. But there was no persuading him to change his mind.

I think Mike looked at me with almost disapproval. I possibly didn’t believe in God either, not the way I do now, but I was caught up in the white dress, looking pretty for once and the whole ritual of it. I wanted to be centre stage with everyone’s eye on me, because I never usually was.

Why did it matter so much? Don’t we all go through the motions at times? It’s just what we do because it’s expected.

I rather think it wasn’t just about believing in God or not. My dad had died and my mum wasn’t able to look after us well for a while. The Roman Catholic Church stepped in to give support. It almost seemed that it came with a price – the children of the household going through all the rituals of confession and communion. It seemed as if they took control. There were rules in place that hadn’t been there before.

Michael’s rebellion was his way of trying to claim back his independence. I kind of admired him then, but chose not to join in the rebellion because I wanted to wear the dress.

There was an opportunity towards the end of the afternoon of the writing class to write a rebel poem:-

feeling powerless

we always dance the

rehearsed steps

“It’s my life” we say

but it isn’t, is it?

So

we dig feet deep into soil

raise heads

lift chins

And say, “No!”

And make them listen

Sussing Out the Secrets to a Short Story

I spoke to a friend earlier this week and mentioned his absence at the Moniack Mhor inspired weekly writing classes. Discovering that it was all about short stories, characters, settings and so on, he declared that he had been there, done it, bought the T-shirt and written numerous stories. Come to think of it, so have I, but it didn’t stop me.

We began with creating a character. Claire gave us a list of things and we set to the task. I like my man Ivan. He’s not a remarkable character, but once placed in a setting and given something to talk about, he became interesting. It seems that he has the potential to feature in a series of stories according to the folks around the table.

Not allowed to simply read through the list, we were to imagine finding a bag, and the contents of the bag would reveal the character.  Some people described the bag in detail and there was always something in the bag that made people go “Ah”.

The bag was resting against a wall beside the bus stop. It was just a plastic carrier with a supermarket logo in primary colours. A quick look around, an empty road, no returning person.

There was an elaborate Mother’s Day card poking out of the top of the bag. A huge vase of flowers covered the front with purple petals picked out in soft cardboard, and a sprinkling of glitter. There was nothing subtle about it – purchased for a mother most definitely loved.

A bag of bird feed nestled next to the card. It was from the farm and poultry shop on the other side of town. Not your usual peanuts or suet balls. Something for hens perhaps? Maybe he kept hens. But no. There was a home-made looking magazine printed on cheap paper with the title “The Pigeon Fancier”. In a police station the same sort of thing might have had pictures of local criminals, but these pages were filled with photographs of pigeons, artfully posed, eying the camera, feathers smoothed and oiled.

I warned you that he wasn’t a remarkable person. At the end of the road where I live there is a man with a shed full of pigeons. There are quite few other birds that settle on the roof of his house and along the wooden fence. It has a feel about it like visitor’s time in a prison, chatting through the bars.

The next task was to write a setting. My man Ivan disliked anything to do with football – so I took him out of his comfort zone and into a football stadium.  I have been to one or two games. We were asked to work through the different senses in describing the place. The first time I went to see a live game we were way up in the top seats. The players were like ants. I hadn’t realised how much I needed the commentary that TV provides. They didn’t tell you who had the ball, who they passed it to, who fouled them, who took the free kick – all the essential stuff.

Dialogue was next on the list.  Claire was looking for a dozen lines.

“So, you want in, then? A piece of the action? Need to move it, mate, before them birds are all bought?”

“I’d like to see the birds first if I may. I don’t like buying birds without having a good feel.”

“Yeah, well. Feeling ‘em up - when does it stop, eh? Wouldn’t we all like to feel ‘em. Then they’d be damaged goods, see?”

“Damaged?  They can’t be that sturdy if you can damage them that easily. Where did you say they were from? Do you have their passports?”

“Passports? Are you kidding? They don’t come with passports. We ship them in. Slip an envelope into the right hands at the passport control.”

You have perhaps worked it out already. The bird seller took a while to catch on. Poor Ivan didn’t. 

Next we marry the dialogue to the setting.

Ivan was becoming uncomfortable not just with the way the conversation was going.  He didn’t like football or football grounds. He wondered why they couldn’t have met somewhere else. They were standing beside the food kiosk. The bird seller was reaching into his pocket for loose change. The smell of chip fat oil was nauseating and Ivan had spilt hot coffee on his hand and it stung.

“Got any brown sauce, mate?” The man pushed the polystyrene tray along the counter.

Ivan was hoping the man had a Spanish dovetail to sell – grey feathers if possible. The ad in the local paper had been in large bold print – “Birds for sale!” The talk of no passports worried Ivan. He needed to know the breeding background of the birds.  It surprised him that the bird seller didn’t seem to find it that important.

I’ll skip the middle bit of the story – it goes on a bit. Someone scores a goal.  There’s a lot of singing. I plundered my setting chart and covered all the senses. The bird seller tried to pressure Ivan into a decision. His voice took on a threatening note.

The bird seller looked around, eyes shifting from a group of me leaning against the coarse brickwork to a single man loitering beneath a poster.

“Something’s not right.”

A hand slapped against Ivan’s chest, feeling the fabric of his shirt.

“Are you wired?”

“Wired?”

“You’re an effing cop! I’m being set up. The whole conversation on tape! I should have known!”

Ivan, small man that he was, tried to make himself even smaller.

“I just want a Spanish dovetail with grey feathers,” he said soflty.

“A Spanish dovetail?”  A dawning look crept over the bird seller face.  “Birds? Real birds? With feathers? Not birds, then? Not women?”

Scorn poured into every word.  It stung more than the spilt coffee.

“Effing ‘ell” said the seller shaking his head as he walked away.

And there you have it - a complete story, apparently, in first draft form. I don’t know whether Spanish dovetails with grey feathers actually exist – but I had you convinced they did, didn’t I?

Ta Lots, Love You, Shaz

My sister’s email address was hacked and a message was sent to all her contacts.  No one was fooled for a moment that the message came from her. I know her too well to suppose her to be on an impromptu visit to the Ukraine, although she did once pay me an impromptu visit a couple of years ago – not me as such, but my well-able-to-fill-in-a-form husband.  She was applying for a grant and the form was pages long and he knows his way around a form.  Despite his expert advice, her application for the grant was turned down.

Here’s the letter as it appeared in my inbox.  I’m not infringing on any copyright laws because it was delivered to me by email.  I have resisted the urge to correct the spelling, grammar or punctuation.

I really hope you get this quickly. I could not inform anyone about our trip, because it was impromptu. we had to be in Ukraine for a program. The program was successful, but our journey has turned sour. we misplaced our wallet and Mobile on our way back to the hotel we lodge in after we went for sight seeing. The wallet contained all the valuables we had. Now our passport is in custody of the hotel management pending when we make payment.

I am sorry if i am inconveniencing you, but i have only very few people to run to now. i will be indeed very grateful if i can get a short term loan from you.this will enable me sort our hotel bills and get my sorry self back home. I will really appreciate whatever you can afford in assisting me with. I promise to refund it in full as soon as soon as I return. let me know if you can be of any assistance. Please, let me know soonest.

Thanks so much.

Sharon

I couldn’t resist!  The creative writer in me just had to write the letter the scammer should have sent that might have convinced them it was genuine.  I’ve mentioned horses quite a lot because my sister has lots of them.  She loves networking with anyone with links to equine assisted therapy.  The Boss man is her hubby Malc – she sometimes does things without telling Malc.  Signing a letter as “Sharon” is a real giveaway – she is Shaz!

My revised version:-

erMy revised

Anyone out there willing to rescue me?  Just off the cuff I decided to take a trip to the Ukraine.  Even the Boss man doesn’t know where I am.  Equine assisted therapy is just getting started over here and they are bursting with new ideas.  I had a good time networking and sharing good practice. The trouble is I have lost my purse and my mobile phone.  The place I’m staying is getting all shirty because I can’t pay the bill.  They’re holding my passport to ransom.  I know, I know…stupid woman and all that.

I know it’s asking a lot BUT I will be forever grateful and promise to muck out stables for a long time, if you have stables, if you can loan me some money.  Just enough to pay the bill and get my passport back and come home – a few thousand pounds should cover it.  Ha Ha Ha. You could do a whip round at the pub on my behalf! Seriously, I will pay you back as soon as I can.  I will also give you free horse riding lessons but if you fall off I can't be held accountable.

Ta lots

Love you

Shaz

Opening Lines

Our Saturday morning writer’s group met yesterday.  It has been a couple of months since we last met. The last time we met at the Breathe Chapel it was a very sunny day.  We sat outside with the sun on our faces.  Yesterday we were huddled inside with dark clouds threatening rain outside.  We kept the door open for the late arrivals making things just a little chillier than I would have liked.  But the warm companionship made up for it.

My friend, Heather, was reporting back on her twenty minutes of time spent with Isobel Dixon from the Book/Literary Festival that ended a week or two ago. Running the opening laps of her poetry journey, Heather was looking for the inside edge – useful tips from the people who know about all necessary things poetic.  

Part of the “debriefing” included the need for a good opening chapter of a book you hope to submit to a publisher or an agent.  With a number of clients already on their books time is precious.  If you haven’t caught their attention by the time they get to the bottom of page 1, it may be too late.

Opening lines are very important.  We had a go at identifying some first lines of books, films, poems and songs.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”

Shame on me I got this one wrong.  I had the right author but wrong book.

“All children, except one, grow up”

I got this one right – not because I have read the book but I have seen numerous versions of the film.  Who else could it be anyway?

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”

This was on the tip of my tongue and remained stubbornly there.

“It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”

This I identified as “Tom’s Midnight Garden” – OK so “a bright cold day” doesn’t really match up with midnight.  It was “striking thirteen” that I was focussing on.

There were other first lines.  I did quite well with the songs, quite badly with the films and failed miserably to identify any of the poets.  Maybe that’s the way forward – set everything to music!

Thinking about first lines and the necessity to make a good first impression I was reminded of a poem that I had written a few years ago.  

Ten Seconds

Ten seconds -

The time I have

To impress you

Ten seconds -

The time you have

To be impressed

So I appeal your senses and

Arrange my attire

To match your standards

Skirt lowered, neckline raised

Make-up applied not to the face

But to conceal the tattoo on my arm

I can see

You’re impressed

An unrestrained smile

Ten seconds

And I

Impressed you

If only

Jesus was so

Easily impressed

I cannot appeal to His senses or

Arrange my attire

To match His standards

Skirt lowered, neckline raised

Makes no difference

He sees the tattoo on my arm

And other more serious things

I would like to conceal

You embrace me

Only if I fall within

Your acceptable parameters

He embraces me

Anyway

And by His grace I fall

Within His

Faith Writing at the Farmhouse

You can tell that the instructions to get to the farmhouse were written, not by a level headed man, but an eye-for-detail artist woman.  I would never have got to my destination without the house with the red roof, the sign about the eggs and the big fir tree near the drive.

The event was a creative writing morning.  As much as I love my Saturdays with a lazy breakfast, a lucky fifteen bet and my gorgeous husband across the table – I will hand all three over without a backward glance to spend time learning a little more about writing.  I am a writing addict.

The morning was led by Chris Leonard, a professional writing tutor. She has written lots of books and presided over large groups and small groups of creative writers.  I missed some of what she was saying as, like the inattentive pupil at the back of the class, I was talking to my friend, Cliff, about other, perhaps what was at the time, more urgent stuff.

The room was full of people mostly at the beginning of their writing journey.  They were pushing the door to see what was behind it – but all very much creative people in other disciplines.  There were artists and musicians and a woman who was about to build a house in a field.  There were some of us who were not quite at the start of the journey but some place along the path.   

The opening exercise was all about stretching the muscles.  A lot of writing is about connecting with the five senses.  Given the start of a sentence we were to fill in the end. 

Darkness smells like… wood smoke

Chocolate sounds like… a sigh

Surprise tastes of … lemons

The exercises weren’t anything new.  It wasn’t new either that there were so many similar and different responses.  Taking time to read through what we had written and to try and explain our choices – that was new.  Other creative days have been perhaps a little bit more filled up and fast paced and the focus was on the writing rather than the reading and reflecting.

Next we were presented with some plates of stuff – some edible, some less so.  Although the olives were on the edible plate – they are not edible.  Having spent five years in Cyprus it was expected that I would develop a taste of olives, but I never did.  Some twenty five years down the line, and spurning all things olive, I wondered whether I had developed simply a prejudice rather than an active dislike.  I once thought I didn’t like Wheatabix, but I was wrong.  I popped an olive into my mouth intending to give it an unprejudiced chew.  I really don’t like olives and it’s not a mental thing but a taste bud thing.

I settled on a piece of moss to write my piece and retrieved a memory about Sunday school, “making Jesus with an empty toilet roll and crepe paper” and racing snails along the windowsill.

Being ladies, many of the women, picked on basil or rosemary, and wrote about meals they had made, or eaten, or remembered parents making when they were young.  Writing anything, whether it’s poetry or prose, is about engaging the emotions.  Chords were touched and tears flowed unexpectedly.

My favourite writer of the morning was Marion.  I am not sure I understood much of what she wrote – herbs and I are just passing acquaintances.  It was her reading of it that captured me.

There was a musical round.  Lorna, who had opened her home for the morning (indeed, invited us to stay as long as we liked and pointed to a couple of empty bedrooms if we so needed), is a wonderful pianist. She has recently produced a DVD of inspirational music.  She played while the rest of us wrote.

Last week on a church retreat we also had a time of listening to music, soaking in the presence of God, and tuning in to his voice.  Using music as a writing prompt wasn’t something I had tried before. 

Eventually I wrote the first draft of Summer Play. It was a very fresh tune, not heavy or slow, but light, with arpeggios up and down the scales.  I have a thing right now about trees and leaves and light breezes and it began to fit together.  

I am always surprised at how much of a positive response I get from the things I write.  I think about how this could be improved or that, and I pour over a thesaurus and swap words endlessly round, trying to find just the fight combination.  I need to write and let go!  Launch it and let it fly!  (and a hundred other sound bites!) I definitely hold some things in my hand too long.

We had lunch in the sunshine.  I had made a promise to myself that I would stop eating tuna sandwiches – I know fish is good for you I don’t think I like tuna that much.  It was the only sandwich filler in the cupboard.  Maybe it was the bread rather than the tuna, or the sunshine and scenery, or the company and the creative words still swilling around my head, or the echoes of the music, or the knowledge that I had not got lost on the way and arrived late, or a first draft of a new poem waiting to be polished up – it was a good end to a very good morning.

Moniack Mhor

Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre was the venue of the second day of the weekend writing course. 

It might have been just fifteen miles away from Inverness, but a look at the milometer in the car shows I travelled a lot further than that!  The AA route I printed off did not stand up to the challenge.  The promised thirty minutes turned into an hour and a half.  The final left turn, right turn and left turn took me deep into the hills but not to my destination.  Had I been following me in an unmarked police car, for whatever reason, I would have been suspicious of my intentions.  There are a lot of big houses up in them there hills.  I could have been casing the joints. 

I was actually on the right road at one point.  Had I just kept going I would have reached Moniack Mhor.  Instead, convinced I was on the wrong road, I turned around and headed back down the hill.

A local hotel had vaguely heard of the place but no one knew where it was.  The postcode given apparently covered a very large area – not a mere single street.  The man behind the desk kindly lent me his phone and I called the centre for help.

I had thought of abandoning the course.  I had enjoyed the previous day and perhaps anything else might have been an anti-climax.

Arriving an hour late I missed the first writing exercise – a filling in the blanks affair with creative responses.  They had just moved on to look at nature poems from famous poets.  I scored brownie points by noticing an unusual rhyming scheme that might otherwise have gone unnoticed – AABA – BBCB – CCDC- DDED- and so on.

There was an interesting youtube clip of a man reading a poem with something claiming to be music in the background.  It was sound and there was rhythm and there were different notes – but it lacked any kind of tunefulness or harmony.  It did little to add to the poem.  One woman sitting at the end of the table snorted not just at the music but at the poem itself.  It required a lot of work from the reader to make sense of it.  It involved an abandoned township and a lot of trees and some girls – but I think the girls weren’t real and the trees were some kind of metaphor – or not.  

We were then left to our own devices for an hour or so to write from our forest day ramble.

There were individual tutorials available with the course leader.  I had made up my mind that I wasn’t going to go.  I am not so bold as to suppose that I know everything about poetry writing or that now I have a poetry book out there I don’t need expert help.  It was just that I had come to the weekend from a very bad end of week.  I was barely holding things together although the forest walks had done much to restore me.  Poetry is the one thing that, right now, I do well.  I didn’t want anyone bursting that bubble.  I know that friends and family like the poetry I write and they say it’s good, but there is always that question hovering in the background about whether it really is good.  An expert in the field might think it’s not so good.

Well, despite my intentions, my curiosity got the better of me.  I wanted to know what the expert might say.  I had written three poems and handed them over for comment.  The first two passed muster – a line deleted from the first was all he suggested.  He talked about redundant words and I had a whole redundant line! 

The third poem was dissected.  The stresses on certain words were on the wrong syllable.  I had gone out of my way to avoid clichés – but he said my alternative to a cliché was worse than the cliché itself.  The last line had too many syllables but he couldn’t see how I could maintain the powerful thought by using a different line.  I had “set myself a mountain to climb” and he looked forward to seeing the re-worked poem.  He also suggested something longer than the four lines.

It was a really painless tutorial.  He didn’t talk down to me.  It went really well and I was glad that I went.

The final summing up was for us all to read the pieces of work.  There was the option to stay quiet.  I had spent most of the writing time doing another poem, focussing on the forest walk and including trees and moss and stuff.  I had poured over a thesaurus but ached for a rhyming dictionary instead.  I just did my best.  In this day and age of free verse, I sometimes think that rhyming poetry can be snorted at.  I thought about not sharing it because the rhymes were too obvious and simple.  I wasn’t prepared for the reaction.  They loved it.  Names of other poets were thrown about the room and my poem, apparently, held its own with them all.  How encouraging is that?

I don’t write this to blow a trumpet and say that I am a great poet – but to say that the whole weekend did so much to restore what had been damaged earlier on in the week.  God had known, long before the weekend was organised and I had signed up, that I needed to be there.  Thursday and Friday were very hard days for me.  The rubber hit the road – and the road, a metaphorical one, was sprinkled with nails – and the rubber shredded.  Grim days they were and only two of them, thankfully.  I knew that I would recover, but felt disinclined to assess the damage and think about repairs.

Everything got fixed over the weekend – the forest walk on the Saturday and the focussed writing and the tutorial on the Sunday.  I have come away with a deep down confidence about my writing and a renewed confidence in myself.

AFT

I have had a really wonderful weekend.  It was a birthday treat from my husband – two days of plenty of stimulation, opportunities to write and constructive feedback from experts.

Day One was spent with the ladies at the Abriachan Forest Trust.  While I might have textbooks and dictionaries on the bookshelves at work, they have a stuffed badger, a variety of empty wasp nests, skulls and antlers on theirs. Where I have four walls, a selection of windows and a door they have 534 hectares of forest.

After a short writing exercise to warm up the creative juices, we were taken on a very slow walk through a kissing gate and along a forest path.  We went just a few hundred yards but it took a hour and a half.  Commentary ranged from naming trees to identifying the particular variety of lichen on the branches.  Every aspect of managing the forest was explained, not through looking at pictures in a book, but by wading through bracken and touching things.  Even the poo from a pine martin was unravelled with a twig,

It was more than fascinating.  I envied them their knowledge of nature and their interaction with it.  I felt almost ashamed that I knew so little.  I spent my childhood in a rural village, but spent far too much time re-enacting scenes from “Captain Scarlett” and not enough learning about the flora and fauna around me.

The first poem sprang from a phrase that echoed in my head. “It’s like learning a foreign language.” 

The Forest

I confuse wild cherries with willows

And mix up bark and bud

As I learn the language

Of a forest

I stumble over the nuances

Of celandine and buttercups

The young oak

Refuses to surrender

Its brown leaves

But the words I have learnt

Slip away on the breeze

Despite an introduction to different trees the knowledge was not transferable.  Just because I was told “this tree is a birch”, I didn’t seem to be able to recognise the other birch trees in the forest.

The conversation moved on to badgers.  A nearby slope was home to a badger set or two.  We had to take their word for it as we didn’t see any.

The conversation moved on to bikers.  Mountain bikers have made their own trails down the hill.  The women recognised that the forest is not theirs.  They have to share it with other groups of people.  They didn’t mind the bikers hurtling down the hill, but talked to them of places to avoid.  Bluebells barely above ground had been mown down and newly planted saplings had been knocked over.  They could have waggled a finger and spoken harshly but chose to talk to the bikers and offer advice about minimising the damage.

I hadn’t realised the conversation had moved on from the badgers.  Apparently the bikers can hurtle from the top of the hill to the bottom in four minutes.  Badgers? Thought I. Moving that quickly? I wasn’t the only one to miss the change in the conversation. The picture in my head demanded a poem.

The Badger Run

At midnight the badgers

dash down the hill

Leaping the boulders,

through bracken they spill

From top to the bottom,

In four minutes flat

I stand in awe of

Achievements like that

I missed having my husband walking beside me.  The idea of writing anything and sharing it with others brings him out in a cold sweat.  He would have liked the walk.  He would have liked the kissing gate.  Everyone would have been lined up and told to kiss the person coming through the gate.  He would have demonstrated with me.

Curious them that the gate prompted such a sad poem.   I tried to force the poem to be positive and uplifting but it wouldn’t cooperate.  I was at pains later to tell people that it was not about me and my husband.  We haven’t stopped kissing – at gates or in other places. Showing the poem to Joe when I came home, I was at pains to insist it wasn’t biographical.

No More Kissing

We have stopped kissing - you and I

Our life together - left to die

Trails we followed now overgrown

I hew through bramble knots alone

I really enjoyed the first day of the weekend.  The weather wasn’t great.  A little bit on the windy side. It was only as I was leaving the car park at the Forest Trust that I read the notice NOT to park in the car park.  High winds were felling tall thin trees and nowhere was really safe.  All that was missing was the giant and the giant’s bowling ball as far as the landscape went.  They were planning to take down some of the trees, but the wind got there first and didn’t consult them on the ones that needed to come down.

I shall never look at a forest path and ignore the trees around me.  In fact I shall buy a book of trees so I know what to look for in buds and bark and leaf shapes.

The variety of things and how they all live together in one space is so fascinating.  I see God’s finger prints everywhere.