Rearrangements

I'm not quite sure where the time has gone, but it seems I never have enough of it to sit down and update this blog. I'm too busy juggling jobs. Or swimming. Or cycling. Or camping. Or seeing friends. 

Two years have gone by. We've emerged from the pandemic to pick up the pieces, though our recovery is way behind that of other European countries. Our poor beleaguered NHS is facing sustained pressure - handclaps were never going to pay the bills - and  people's incomes are dropping like stones. As if the pain of recovery were not enough, the world is embroiled in yet another war. Meanwhile, the planet...

So yes, there is a mood of despondency and there is very real anger out there, yet people continue to inspire and shine a light in the darkness.

In 2021 I had the good fortune to be involved with a multi-arts project working across six different community hospitals in Oxfordshire. Older people and those who are frail tend to spend a long time on the ward. It doesn't matter how hard nurses and doctors work, how warm and compassionate they are, people just want to be home amongst familiar faces and in their own bed. Enter a team of talented visual artists, a movement practitioner, a musician and a poet... We didn't disrupt the routine - the delivery of quality healthcare is paramount - but we did bring in ideas and adventures. 

Here's a film made by the wonderful Emma Spellman which should give you a sense of some of the amazing things we achieved. Hats off to my colleagues. They are wonderful artists and I was very proud to be part of such a fantastic team.

If you need a film maker, do check out Emma's website Oojamaflick . She has a terrific portfolio. 

I know I keep saying this, but it really is a privilege to work in our hospitals. I have enormous admiration for people's dedication and professionalism, especially after everything they've been through in recent years. And here's a special mention for those who keep the wards clean and change the bedding. You never see them in TV series, but they are part of the fabric of a hospital. They keep everyone going with their jokes and stories. They are often the social glue in what is a very busy day for staff.

On 1st December 2021 it was my turn to be in hospital when I became the proud owner of a new knee! 

This shiny little  bit of kit on the right doesn't come cheap. Hours of research and engineering went into it. The Oxford Knee is famous the world over. It's been refined and perfected several times since the day I got run over by a bus and ended up having a tendon transfer and a cartilage removed. 'Get back on your bike,' the surgeon told me. I thought he was joking, but he was absolutely serious. 'You're going to get arthritis. If you want to stay active and keep fit and healthy, start cycling again.' 

Apart from the endless fun and all the adventures I've had on various bikes over the decades, his advice proved sound. When my knee started to stick, I knew it was time to get a TKR. Prolonged aching is one thing. Stabbing sensations and sudden locking at traffic lights is quite another. I'd lasted 18 years longer than he predicted and it was only due to the daily bike ride. Basically, I was fit enough for the replacement. They do say you should try and improve fitness and nutrition before surgery if you're able to. I remember doing a mad bike ride in driving snow a week or two before the operation. It was our last adventure together. Now my old knee is ashes in some landfill and I have a shiny little bit of technology doing her job.

Thank you again NHS. You deserve every penny you can get. I hope you all get your pay rises and I hope the service thrives, never mind survives, long into the next century, assuming we haven't all murdered ourselves and burnt the planet to a crisp by then.

What next? Hours of physio - and let's hear it for physiotherapists now, because they really do get called some rotten names. They're only trying to get us mobile and independent again. Of course it hurts to increase the range of movement, but improvement comes incrementally, day by day, a little at a time, building strength, gaining confidence. Thousands of pounds are spent on these operations and we can't be bothered to do 30 minutes or so each day? Can you imagine how frustrating that is when so much is ploughed into our care? To ignore their advice is disrespectful. I've seen how hard they work and how much they care about patient wellbeing. In any case, I was really keen to get back on my bike, and I'd booked a two-month writing retreat in the Outer Hebrides. I was hardly going to be able to drive all the way up there if I lounged around not being bothered.

This is what I was aiming towards. It took three months eventually. Hebridean weather is not massively conducive to cycling. We're talking 60 mph winds here. I did eventually get used to cycling in 40 mph, but it was hard work and it was, quite frankly, terrifying. The causeways between the lochans are low and a sudden gust could pitch you into the water if you weren't careful. I know I have a love of open water swimming, but these little lakes were far colder than anything I've ever swum in.

I was rediscovering my love of walking, anyway. Every day I walked for miles along white sandy beaches, down to the loch and up occasional hills. 

The Isle of Benbecula is distinctly flat. It's moody and dark and strangely beautiful. No two moments are the same. One minute it's gloriously sunny, the next it's viciously windy and hail is driving at you like hundreds of deracinated teeth, then oh, a rainbow plants itself at your feet and burns the madness away. Small and sudden dramas and an ever changing light. It's an artist's dream, I suppose, but I would never be quick enough to capture any of it.

I was writing a novel, in any case. Far from the noise of the quotidian - the traffic, the planes, phones and ringtones, DIY enthusiasts, road repairs, dogs barking at window cleaners, dogs barking at people going past, Amazon deliveries, the blare of TVs, adverts, junk mail - noise, all of it. Not that Benbecula was quiet - but there is a difference between sound and noise and I was quickly discovering how profound that difference is.

Suddenly, I was writing several thousand words a day. I don't say it was necessarily good writing, but the point is, I was writing. I had the head space to think, to reflect, to turn something over and over before crafting it into some sort of shape. Eventually, I got into a rhythm. 45 minutes of physio before breakfast, a decent little feast of local produce, then a solid block of writing till about 2 o'clock. After than I would do a bit of shopping perhaps, and then walk for one, maybe two hours. The days were short. Darkness fell around 4 o'clock . It was important to make the most of each day. After a late lunch, I might go back to writing for a while, and then I'd light the fire and relax till bedtime.

Gradually, I became more still and centred. People were worried that I'd be lonely, but this never happened. I valued the absence of a phone signal, though I welcomed the time I set aside for emails and WhatsApp calls. And I rejoiced in the ancient art of letter writing. 

I began to notice a heightened sense of smell. I seemed to be living in a perpetual dream of kelp and burning heather. Even my clothes smelt of it.  And taste intensified. I have never eaten such an eggy egg as the Benbecula egg, or tasted such porridgey porridge.

But it was sound that surprised me most. Curlews, oystercatchers, teal, the wren nesting in the satellite dish, the solitary blackbird that had only one tune because what's the point of learning another one if you're the only blackbird for miles around and there's no one to compete with, and the slow flap-flap of geese across the lochan. On one particularly still day when there was hardly a breeze to ruffle the page of my notebook, I sat outside with my eyes closed and listened. Slowly, I became aware of a tiny papery sound to the left of where I was sitting. I opened my eyes and looked down. It was a bee in the trumpet of a daffodil. It's a sound I had never heard before and probably shall never hear again. I realised then what an impoverished life we have if all we know is the garish hyperbole of capitalist enterprise.

We can't live in stillness forever, unless we make a commitment to a life of seclusion. People do. Nuns and monks, hermits. Some of them even call that life silent. But silence doesn't exist, unless you're in a vacuum, and then you wouldn't be able to breathe. You'd be dead. Death isn't silent either. Decay is busy. All our photons will be passing through someone or something else long after we've gone. The universe never stops growing or changing. It's like the sea which keeps rearranging things. 

Seclusion is useful, though. It enabled me to be enormously productive and it flipped a trip switch in my case, because when I returned to noise I found I really couldn't settle in my old ways. Nothing seemed to fit any more. I slipped into work again - happily slipped into it - but my living arrangement had to change and so I am moving house and setting up entirely on my own this time. It won't be perfect. Nothing is. But it will be different, and I will continue learning. 

And what of the refugees who have fled something far worse than noise? What peace will they find, I wonder? The woman from Mariupol I met one day when I was out cycling this summer, who was due to give birth in the autumn, the Syrian couple who were out walking with their new baby the other week, the people who are living in camps and prepared to risk their lives on a leaking boat. What future awaits these people?

Seclusion is all very well, but there's a big world out there and we are a part of it. We're all a part of the change. How that change happens and what shape it assumes is up to us.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 1

Smile Inside 

iID have been asking participants who are self-isolating what makes them smile inside. A group of artists have been commissioned to respond to their answers. You can see their work on iID's website. My poems were inspired by Stephen and Gladys.

Here is the filmpoem that Gladys inspired. Peter Anderson is a fabulous videographer and it has been an absolute pleasure working with him. 

Enjoy!

I'll also be reading my 2nd placed winning poem at the online Poetry London launch 

on Thursday 15th October at 7 o'clock. 

Click here to get your ticket. 

There's a fabulous line-up. I'm very chuffed to be in such good company.

Watching and Listening. But What Next?

No post since the end of January when I was carping on about my local swimming pool. Little did I think that I'd be glad for the opportunity to swim around like a fish in a tank for the next few months! We never see what's coming, do we?

Or we do, and we just sit on it. I was, in fact, watching with absolute horror, as the news unfolded in China. China might be far away from the UK, but humans have made the planet small with all our comings and goings. 

Still, in between times...

There was the absolute joy of working with Oxford Concert Party again, this time in Kirtlington Primary School, and renewing our working relationship with Filda from BK-LUWO. 

Filda had been wanting to take the Ugandan folk story about Kamdenge further. It's a story that has been close to her heart for a long time. Like her, Kamdenge is a refugee. Like all refugees he has to make trustworthy friends and be resourceful, smart and brave. He also has to be true to himself.

Filda told the assembled school some of her own personal story and then she told the folk tale. We had, from that point, just five and a half weeks to turn it into a play - ie. write the script, write the music, rehearse the play and songs, make the props and costumes, before performing it for parents and the women of BK-LUWO. 

The entire school? 

Yes. 

Five and half weeks? 

Impossible. 

But -

1. Children's memories are extraordinary.

2. If children are enthused, their imaginations soar.

3. If something is fun, important and worthwhile, they'll commit themselves.

By the end of our next session, the whole school had learnt our first song and I had a fabulous script writing team from Year 6.  

We pretty much nailed the script in two sessions. These were the main actors, so they had a vested interest in good writing! They were  not just quick and inspired, but they worked really well collectively. 

Meanwhile, Arne and Isabel were assembling a chorus, dancing flames, marching  soldiers, crested cranes, a rhinoceros, sacred ibis, peacocks, flamingos, an elephant, an antelope and a monkey. 

The set began evolving early on, too - palm trees, backdrops, screens. Tony Lloyd, who I know as a superb printmaker and sculptor, turned out to be a maker extraordinaire. He made an absolutely convincing fridge full of food for one of the characters to wear, which brought the house down. 

There was an array of musical instruments to learn to use and - as always - we had to mark out the playing space after lunch for each visit. We had warm afternoons and long sessions with the whole school which was tiring for us, but even more so for the children. Despite this, and with much encouragement from the teachers, they gave the rehearsals their all.

Our final performance was a big hit and Filda's daughter Grace, an inspiring woman herself, led the school out of the hall in huge vibrant snaking dance.

We would have very much liked to have taken the show to the community, but the world was beginning to close down one country after another, and we were not long to follow. I hope everyone felt sustained by the fantastic achievement in the following months. When the children are older and look back on 2020, I hope they remember that there was one story over and beyond the daily news that helped shaped their understanding of the world - a story of survival, ingenuity and compassion.

Arts work has become dormant. On the surface, at least. An artist never stops working, of course. In fact, for some of us, lockdown became a period of intense creativity. Normally I'm running around like a headless chicken. Having the luxury to write, read widely and think has allowed me to develop my own work. Normally, I spend the majority of my time facilitating other people's creative journeys.  

Some interesting commissions have come my way. One is Smile Inside and you can see some of my work on the this site - I responded to stories by Gladys and Stephen. There is more work to come. I have teamed up with film-maker Peter Anderson to create a filmpoem based on Gladys's story. This will go live in September. 

Poetry readings there have been a-plenty. They're all on Zoom now, which has the advantage of allowing people from other countries to attend. I have attended book launches and lectures as well and am buying more books than ever now that I'm not spending anything on travel. It isn't all doom and gloom. It's been great to link with poets in Bonn again and again, and fabulous to hear readings from across the pond and as far away as Singapore. I hope these relationships and opportunities remain for a very long time.

For my own part, I was made runner-up in the Poetry Society's Artlyst Art to Poetry Award and read to a fairly large audience this week. I also received the news that I'd won second place in the Poetry London Prize. I shall spend the money on buying more writing time.

So, an interesting year so far. But oh, the loss of live theatre and music, and the inescapable fact that the world's poorest continue to suffer most. If there is one thing this pandemic has shown us more clearly than anything else, it's the divide between rich and poor. Add to this the legacy of colonialism and the hard edge of white supremacy, and the world seems damaged almost beyond repair. Our ecosystem is collapsing too.

I think back to those five and a half weeks in a small Oxfordshire primary school and wonder what future the world's children have inherited. Many young people are very, very angry. Many more people are exhausted and terrified. We have a responsibility to get ourselves out of this mess. I hope we haven't left it too late. I think we should be listening to young people more. And we certainly should be listening to the people we have systematically kept down.

One day I'll swim the channel...but not here, I'm afraid

About forty years ago I taught myself to swim in Bacup baths. Since then, I’ve swum on a fairly regular basis in pools all over Greater Manchester and Lancashire, London, Devon, Cornwall and anywhere else I’ve happened to be living, working and holidaying.
So many pools, some old, some new, some quirky, some like glass cathedrals, but always the same swimmers: beginners, improvers, dynamic torpedoes, and people who simply want to claim a bit of quiet for themselves – all ploughing up and down, up and down. 

When I moved to Witney in Oxfordshire, one of the first things I did was join Windrush Leisure Centre. Swimming after work is calming and strengthening. I was entering my 50s and keen to maintain good health. They do laid-back evening sessions which are quiet and focused. 

I remember meeting a woman who was swimming the channel. "How many lengths is that?" I asked. "1,416." She said it had changed her whole lifestyle. She felt better than she'd felt in years. Another woman I met was swimming right up until the week before she gave birth. Her labour was virtually painless and only lasted a couple of hours. I decided there and then I'd do the Channel challenge, but then someone high up decided we would swim in rectangles from now on. I checked out the other local pools. Everyone was still swimming up and down. Only Witney was banning lengths. Bizarre, but I had no reason to think that swimming wouldn't continue to be an invigorating and inspiring part of my weekly routine.

The thing I’ve noticed with pools that have one or two basic rules is this: people don’t dive bomb and run along the sides or attempt to plunge head-first into shallow water; they get on with what they've come to do and hardly anyone comes to any harm. Swimmers are generally a rather friendly polite lot and altercations are very rare. We manage to glide past each other without mishap and try to give way to less confident people as well as steer clear of superheroes aiming to complete mega-lengths in record time.

At Witney, however, there are lots of rules. One lane is fast and  clockwise, one is medium and counterclockwise, another is slow and clockwise, and the larger bit is for general use and goes counterclockwise, so you have to decide if you’re fast, medium or slow or whether you belong to some other category like floaters, couples engaging in foreplay or people who want to have a pleasant chat in the shallow end. There are also a handful of swimmers who are Very Committed to the Rectangle and this is a category completely unique to Witney.

Now, I’m not fast, and I doubt very much if I’m medium, so I dived into the deep end and began swimming in the slow lane in a clockwise fashion, which is impossible, given it’s only a lane’s width. I discovered this when someone reprimanded me for bumping into him whilst doing backstroke. "By the way," he said. "Shouldn’t you be in the medium lane?" I apologised and swam under the ropes to the next lane, but of course, I forgot which direction I was supposed to be going in and got told off again. "By the way," the next person said. "Shouldn’t you be in the slow lane?" 

The thing with rules is the more you have, the more confused people get, and the more confused people get, the angrier they are. I regularly get told off for being at the wrong speed. Nobody knows what the official rectangle speed is supposed to be, but most people have their own opinion. For the floaters it’s a nice bobbing along tempo; for the couple indulging in foreplay and the those having a conversation in the shallow end, it’s zero knots per hour; as for the rest of us, it seems that whatever you do is wrong, unless you're the person who's doing it right.

I’ve been punched by a woman who thought I was too fast, had fingernails scraped along my skin by people who wanted me out of their way because I was too slow, been bashed by flailing arms and even barred from entering the shallow end. One morning a gang of three stood legs apart and arms stretched out to prevent me getting any further because I was doing lengths. “But there’s no sign up today,” I said. The rules, you see, can be quite arbitrary. “But WE swim in rectangles,” said one gang member. “We LIKE rectangles.” “No problem,” I said. “I like lengths and we’re allowed to do what we want today.” I called the sleepy guard over. “She can do whatever she wants,” he mumbled. So, I continued my lengths and the gang of three glared at me for the remainder of the session and got some sly kicks in when he wasn't looking.

I should mention that these are adult sessions. They can, on occasion, be utter bliss after a 12-hour day. You turn up at 9 o’clock and, if you're one of only half a dozen people, you really can just plough up and down for a whole hour at your own pace. 50 – 60 lengths before bedtime is the best de-stresser I know. Unless the guard enforces the rectangle on you because one of the gang of three has just turned up at 9:35. “It’s for safety,” he explains. “But we’re grown-ups and there are only four of us. Why bother heating up the middle of the pool if we’re only allowed to go round the outside?" He doesn't answer.

Witney surpassed itself last week. I turned up to discover a significantly reduced general bit swimming counterclockwise. It was sad watching the floaters bobbing like gentle potatoes amongst the Very Committed to the Rectangle gang. The frottaging couple was there, and the conversationalists were in full swing, so there was barely room to turn a corner. However, the slow lane was free so I took my chances and dived in. To my left were the mediums and, next to them, the superheroes powering along nicely. Farthest away was the reason for the sudden squishing up of the general bit: something that appeared to be aquaprayer. That’s novel, I thought. There was a lot of kneeling and standing and some walking about and an enthusiastic instructor making prayer hands.

I got to length 32 and was feeling stronger and stronger, having settled into good deep diaphragmatic breathing when a man crashed into me. “Sorry,” we both said, because we’re adults, then he politely informed me I was going the wrong way. I turned around and blow me if they hadn’t exchanged the slow clockwise sign for a medium counterclockwise. I wasn’t just going the wrong way, I was going the wrong speed. I apologised again and swam under the rope and joined the floaters, frottagers and chatterboxes. It was chaos, but worse was to come. The guard suddenly decided to remove the ropes. Now we were all in it together and no one knew whether they were supposed to be fast, medium, slow, praying, clockwise, counterclockwise or what. The only people who seemed utterly unfazed were the frottaging couple and the two potatoes floating slowly towards the exit.

Pensions and Passes and the Passion of Politics

This year I turned 65 and five months later can now claim my pension and free bus pass (thank you successive Tory governments for making me wait so long). 

2019 also happens to include the financial year I found myself working 50-60-hour weeks and three weekends out of four in an effort to make what I earned in 2005. Not many organisations pay the Royal Society of Authors’ or the Poetry Society’s recommended fees. Not many, I suspect, can genuinely afford to. But if a plumber or a builder needs to be called in, you can bet that their asking price will be accepted. The UK has never valued the Arts in the same way.

Artists can't afford to live on fees that are pegged back to what we were earning over 10 years ago. Despite this, we slog on, many of us working well past our retirement ages. We do this because we're often passionate about the work we do. You can seldom stop an artist producing their own work anyway. We need to write, paint, compose, sing, dance etc. It's like breathing to us. But our work with people often has a political charge, or at least a moral impetus guiding it, and that is, in some ways, more like collective breathing.

It's generally recognised these days that participation in the Arts has a profoundly positive effect on people’s wellbeing. Care homes, hospitals and day centres, as well as schools and community organisations want us to facilitate workshops in growing numbers, and because they're strapped for cash (thank you again successive Tory governments) they take advantage of our passion and commitment.

I’ve lost count of the requests I've had with a fee offer that's the equivalent of what I was getting in 1995. Yes, you read that figure correctly.  Seriously, would you expect a plumber to work for what she or he was earning 24 years ago? I have friends who are in their 70s working ridiculous hours. The government may be blithely telling us that austerity is over – but over for whom?

To be honest, I don't want to fully retire. However, I would like to look after my health a bit more. Thank you, Freedom from Torture, for inadvertently sparking the opportunity.

As many of you know, I have been working with FfT clients in Newcastle as well as initially in Middleborough. The poet DorothyYamamoto, who is a member of Oxford Stanza II, is also a keen supporter and she edited an anthology of poems to raise money for the charity. I’ve discovered supporters in the village where I live, too. The circles widen and overlap like Venn diagrams.

Enter an email into my Inbox telling me about an initiative by Edinburgh FfT member Moira Dunworth to cycle from Hastings to her hometown to raise much needed funds. Moira is my age and retired and can do these things. She also has political awareness and passion and guts and determination in abundance.

Can I offer my support? Great Dog on a bike! Can I? I must! My other big passion is cycling. No way will my work schedule allow me to volunteer for more than a local stage, but I can at least join Moira and Shelagh King (also retired who has teamed up to do the whole 865 miles).

Before I can change my mind, I sign up, put the word out amongst friends and colleagues for sponsorship, then set about earmarking dates and times in my busy schedule for training.

As the weeks go by and the £s start rolling in, the miles accumulate on my speedo, and, as the miles accumulate and my fitness levels improve, I find I'm spending less time in my office and more sunny summer evenings whizzing past fields filled with bird song. The work still gets done. Somehow, I've managed to compress more in less time. My head is clearer and the £s – my wages – also begin to roll in following some stern reminders to agencies that have mislaid my invoices, or simply mislaid the will to pay me.

On the day I achieve pensionable age and can apply for my free bus pass, I have satisfactorily completed some 200 training miles and an array of local hills, including the White Horse at Uffington, six funerals, three baby namings, one wedding, eight writing workshops in Newcastle, six in Norwich, numerous meetings and endless hours of preparation and planning, a seven-day exchange visit to our sister poets in Bonn, manuscript readings, translations and a handful of scrappy notes for poems that may or may not come to anything.

The stage 5 ride from Oxford to Milton Keynes is a doddle and deeply pleasurable and the company of the riders is warm and generous. Our leader, Joanna, sets the perfect pace. Somehow, we arrive two hours ahead of schedule, and disband in brilliant sunshine after team photos. I’ve raised £564 – thank you, generous friends and colleagues – and the entire team, including Violet Hejazi who has learnt to cycle in order to do an 85-mile stretch, has raised nearly £12,000 to date, plus gift aid. I am painfully aware that the funds really should be coming from central government for the vital work that FfT does, but so should funds for a lot of charities. It’s the same old story – the powers that be taking advantage of people’s passion and commitment, our will to generally improve the lot of humanity.

That evening I meet up with Moira and Shelagh again for an excellent Turkish meal. “Bonne route,” I wish them as we hug and say our goodbyes afterwards. “Work less,” says Moira. “Do good things better.” 

Put that pension to proper use, in other words.

Choosing the Open Space

Not long now till Oxford Stanza II's return visit to Bonn. We have many exciting things planned, not least a reading at Anno Tubac and a mask making session with music and performance, as well as our usual workshops at the Arp Museum and plenty of opportunities for food and merriment.

Our theme for this visit is Toni Morrison's quote "I refuse the prison of I and choose the open space of we." Never have international links been so important.


The Creative Future workshops in Newcastle are coming to an end now and I shall miss working with everyone there, as well as miss the warmth and friendliness of the city itself. I keep saying I will treat myself to a leisurely visit there one day. Perhaps later in the year...

Creative Future workshops will begin in Norwich as from next month, and continue into July. Again, I shall be working with asylum seekers and chiefly younger people on this occasion. Where there are language difficulties, interpreters are often a help, but it is also true to say that when the desire to communicate is strong, the meeting ground of ideas is fertile with inventiveness. I have had conversations with people at bus stops when neither of us spoke a word of each other's language. One can always act out a verb and mime or draw a noun.

My last bit of news is a charity bike ride for Freedom From Torture. Some team members are doing the whole Hastings to Edinburgh trip. I'm afraid I only have time for the Oxford to Milton Keynes leg - a mere 40 miles. Do sponsor me - or sponsor any of the other team riders. One of them has only just learnt to ride a bike and she's doing 85 miles, I believe!

For those who don't know, Freedom From Torture is the only UK-based human rights organisation dedicated to the treatment and rehabilitation of torture survivors. Your donation could provide counselling, group therapy and ongoing support for them. It will help give someone hope and strength on their journey to recovery.

Two Events, Two Cities, and a Coat

An exciting week coming up. On Sunday, The Coat of Two Colours is being performed at the Royal College of Music. Oliver Vibrans, a talented composer who has worked in theatre and for radio, and I have revisited this work since its première in Cambridge, and are looking forward to seeing it in a new setting. 

The Coat explores what happens when two communities, who work side by side and hold everything in common, witness an event from entirely different perspectives. It is a tale for our times, it is a tale for all times, and its answer lies, perhaps, with the next generation.

Do come, if you are in London.

Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall

Sunday 28th April 

5 pm

The event is part of the Great Exhibitionists series and is free, but tickets are required. Book here. 

For those of you who live further north, the other exciting occasion is The Studio of Sanctuary Celebration Event at the Art House in Wakefield on Thursday May 2nd. Don't forget to cast your votes in the election before attending, though! I shall be popping along to my local polling station before boarding the train for what promises to be a heart-warming occasion.

Studio of Sanctuary

The Art House

Drury Lane

Wakefield 

WF1 2TE

Thursday May 2nd

5 - 7 pm

Refreshments and Music

Studio of Sanctuary Plaque unveiling

Readings and Prizes for the 2018 Writing Competition

And after that I'm in Bonn working with the renowned Dada war alles gut writers in June. But more about that in another post.

In the meantime, here are some links for you:

Oliver Vibrans

The Art House

Wakefield City of Sanctuary