My secret news!

 A few months ago, I alluded to something exciting (for me) that had happened, but I was not able to say what it was.

Well, today, I can finally say.

One of my poems, Big Sounds, was selected for inclusion in Issue 9 of Tyger Tyger magazine!

This is a lovely online poetry magazine for children aged 7-11 which is free to read, has free teaching resources with it and includes poets from all over the world.

I wrote this poem last September (2024).  I was in  Forest Philharmonic rehearsal, playing Shostakovitch's Symphony no.9, 2nd flute.  Unfortunately for me, the second flute part is very sparse, doesn't play in two whole movements whereas the first flute and piccolo get all the glory.  Even more irritatingly, I had forgotten my book, must have left it at school and I had nothing to do.  The first flute player doesn't like people sitting on phones in rehearsals too so I couldn't do that either (and to be honest, is not a thing I'm prone to do in rehearsals).  I had twice, unsuccessfully submitted poems to Tyger Tyger.  A poem about Mud and about Sums had both not been chosen and I'd received the email that day saying that the new theme for the next issue was Big Things.  As I sat there in the rehearsal, I started thinking about big musical instruments as at that moment, the Bassoon had a massive solo.  And I started writing the poem about big instruments.  The poem came to me really quickly and by the break, I already had a finished poem.  The lovely piccolo player, C, had seen me writing and asked me what I was doing. I bashfully mentioned I was trying to write a poem and mentioned this issue's theme.  She asked me if she could hear it and I read it to her. When I got to the final line, she roared with laughter and told me she loved it.  The deadline for submission was December.  I sat on the poem for a while, thinking that I wasn't sure whether to submit but I also wondered if I could write anything better- you can submit up to three poems per issue.  By the time the deadline was looming, I'd written two other poems, one about relatives and one about a Giant and submitted them.

Oh, the months of waiting felt long and in the meantime, I'd written many, many other poems.  I knew it was probably unlikely I'd get chosen though I knew I liked me first poem very much.  It was also very much inspired by that thing my work colleague John had said at the Testing Ground open mic night I'd attended at Bard Books that very week.  He said, "Write about what you know."  Music is what I know best.  Part of me had a flame of hope.

Finally, back in March, I received an email from Rachel Piercey, editor of Tyger Tyger and to my delight, told me they would love to include my Big Sounds poem if it were still available.  I cannot tell you the utter joy I felt at that time. Having had a very difficult start to the year in terms of personal anxiety and depression, this was an exquisite ray of hope and sunshine.  She asked the chosen poets not to make any announcements on social media until the issue launched and so  I sat on the news, only telling CBC and C, my piccolo-playing friend who had been my first reader.  C was delighted for me.

I've noticed a curious coincidence today, as I write this.  My poem includes reference to the Contrabassoon.  Interestingly enough, the only other time I have been selected for something when there are a huge number of submissions is when I was chosen up as a runner up out of 29,000 people who entered a Blue Peter competition to design a cartoon character for Oscar's Orchestra for my depiction of Cassius the Contrabassoon. 

Rachel was very busy and the release date was put back but we exchanged several emails over the months regarding a few edits and things and FINALLY, yesterday was publication day!

Here was Rachel's post announcing it:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rachel Piercey (@rachelpierceywriter)

You can see all the poems here including mine:

Big Sounds:

I want to learn the Double Bass!
Big Granddaddy of the strings.
I’d grunt and growl and scrape and scowl
And play the deepest things!

I want to learn the Contrabassoon!
The size of a rocket ship.
It farts and parps and plops and honks,
Each note I’d just let rip!

I want to learn the Tuba!
It’s a chasm of shining gold.
Like warthog snorts and elephant trumps,
It’s big and bass and bold!

I want to learn the Big Bass Drum!
The vastest of all drums.
The thud and thump, rumble and boom.
I’ll startle everyone!

I want to play the biggest sounds
And shake the entire house!
But sadly, it seems that wishes stay dreams,
Since I’m only a tiny mouse!

Having received a rejection again this week, for another submission, it was lovely that this publication coincided with that.  I am aware that is is probably a one-off and I won't be lucky enough for this to happen again, if I do submit any poems to any publications (I've only tried 3 different publications) but for this moment, I shall rejoice in Big Sounds x Tyger Tyger!

Garden update

Ah, the joy of home-grown produce really is huge!

The season is starting to kick off!

Today, I picked this beautiful little haul!

It's my 2nd cucumber of the year so far.  I bought one plant and my sister germinated the other one.

The first pickings of Rhubarb.  The strawberries have been coming fast and I'm well over a hundred already.  Today included the first raspberries.  Annoyingly, the blueberries aren't so good this year or are taking a while but theese are the first few!   The rocket has been munched to shreds by wee beasties but I'm still going to eat it!  It feels very early for tomatoes but I am not complaining! I think I picked the courgette too early- it is only tiny but I thought it was restricting the others around it!

Here was last week's haul.  The cherries are delicious!  Sweeter than the ones I have been scrumping from the carpark down the road.

One of my cucumbers is absolutely determined to resist growing up its canes!

Here was another haul.  I have to say that fresh chopped mint is the best accompaniment for strawberries!

My loganberries suddenly flopped all over the lawn and knocked a whole load of blackcurrants from the plant (it's bountiful this year...but not ripe yet!)

It amazes me how a tiny stem holds a large cucumber growing!

The birds some some of the cherries but not all!

The Lavender seems very early.  The bees are cherishing it!

My Myrtle bush was looking really sick about a month or so ago. I pruned off all the dead wood and now it is thriving!

The Rhubarb amazes me. It looks so dead in the Winter and then it comes back!

The honeysuckle on the shed is beautifully fragrant.

And provides a nice platform for the birds.

The Toadflax returns with vengeance.

We thought the Campanula had gone forever but it has come back!

My neighbour gave me a different type of strawberry plant to add to my soft fruit bed. I love the red flowers.

Our Clematis as usual, defies all attempts to train it up a trellis or obelisk and climbs up the cherry tree.

 I'm delighted with the garden produce so far!

Chips!

I missed sharing this the previous week! The word of the week was 'Chips'.  I thought about the fact that chips often accompany many meals and thought of all the possibilities.

And once I'd written/typed the word chips that many times, as is often the case, it started to look like not a real word- it just looked strange! Do you ever get that? Is there  a term for it?  Apparently so, according to the internet.  

If you keep 'hearing'  a word over and over again, it's called Semantic Satiation but apparently when you see it over and over again it's called Orthographic satiation! 

I had a busy weekend. Saturday morning, I got up at 6.45am, as I couldn't sleep and I ended up booking to go swimming at 8am. I cycled the 1.5 miles or soo in warm sunshine and swam for an hour. It was a joy! I had a bacon sandwich in the cafe and then cycled to church where as part of our eco team (I am one of them)  activities, we were upcycling some of the chairs that were looking a bit old which included reupholstering and sanding, priming and painting.  I started by cutting the new pieces for the seat cushions and then I went and did some priming in the sunshine under a tree. And got pooed on spectacularly in three places by a Wood Pigeon. Straight onto my left leg, onto the right leg of my shorts and then onto my white t-shirt. Gross!  After this, I cycled home, via Londis to pick up some ice-cream.  I did some washing up, had a snooze on the sofa, attempted to do some marking and then in the evening, had Chinese.  CBC was in Wales doing a multiday cycling camping trip by himself.

Sunday morning, I got up at 8.30 and then got the 9.30 train into London to Edgware Road for a 6 hour rehearsal with Orchestra of the City on Mahler's 9th symphony.  I then went straight to Gray's Inn for another rehearsal with another orchestra for a fundraiser on Tuesday for scholarships.  I cycled back to Farringdon and got the train home and ate more left-over Chinese!

Tonight, I met an old work colleague (my old drama partner in crime who left last year) and then had another orchestra rehearsal.  This week is full!!!

xx

 

A day in Aldeburgh

Hello!!

Last weekend, CBC and I had no particular plans and we suddenly realised that the Aldeburgh festival was on!  In its 76th year, this music festival in the Suffolk seaside town was founded by great British composer, Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears (pronounced Peers).  CBC and I have been to various events for this over the years. He introduced me to it fairly early in our relationship as he was a Hess student when he was young- these students spend time in Aldeburgh stewarding for it and get to stay with local families.

We decided to try and get tickets for the Sunday events.

The timing was perfect as I had JUST started my final Year 4 music unit of the year on Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra 3 days earlier so I was very much in the mood to go to Aldeburgh!

We left home around 8.45am to drive to Suffolk and arrived just in time for the 10.30am Festival service at St Peter's and St Paul's church 

The service received a sermon from the Rt Rev’d Joanne Grenfell, Bishop of Stepneyand the  Britten Pears Chamber Choir was singing, conducted by James Davyand with Francesca Massey organ.  The service was lovely with music by composer of the festival,  Helen Grime: her Missa Brevis and a piece by Daniel Kidane: Christus factus est.  CBC's old colleague and friend L was singing in the choir as she had moved to Suffolk and it was lovely to see her.

I loved the beautiful Benjamin Britten memorial window by John Piper.  Britten had developed a new type of opera which he gave the name 'parables for church performance.  Three of these were named Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal son and all of these are evoked in some way in this beautiful window. 

 After the service we headed to Aldeburgh high street for a spot of lunch.  I queued in the epic fish and chip shop queue whilst CBC went to find some coffee and have a mooch around.

After 30mins, I reached the front of the queue and bought CBC a portion of chips (he'd acquired a toastie) and for myself, a Child-sized portion of Fish and chips plus a small battered sausage. 

I met CBC on the beach to eat.

The fish and chips, cooked in Beef dripping, was delicious and my portion was just the right size!

I went dressed for the seaside:

I bought this gingham sailor top in Primark last month. I never shop in there now but I saw this on Instagram and knew a 100% cotton sailor top in Gingham was something I had to see!

The skirt is from Fatface via a charity shop plus my Seasalt sandals from Depop a good 6 years ago or so.

The sea changed colour in the space of 2 minutes when the sun came out:

We enjoyed our lunch and witnessed a fly-by theft from a Seagull who stole a child's battered sausage.  It also tried to steal mine- I suddenly noticed it hovering inches from my hand.

As CBC ate his Tiramisu cake, I had a paddle! It was refreshing but the sloping shingle was hard to stand upright on as I tried to hold my skirt!

We had to hotfoot it back to the car, parked past the church (via a charity shop where CBC bought an old print of a lovely John Singer Sargeant painting) and drove to Snape Maltings for our next musical performance.   This was held in the Britten studio at 2pm.  We crept in late in the complete dark, accidentally bumping into our friend L who was a steward for it!

The concert was a performance by Fu and Betts-Dean: The programme was entitled Solitude with Schubert Lotte Betts-Dean,  mezzo-soprano and George Xiaoyuan Fu on  piano.  It began with a film called Solitude With Schubert (first screening) by Matilda Hay filmmaker. The pieces were Schubert: Einsamkeit, D.620 (17’) Schubert: Schwanengesang, D.957 (selection) (15’) Schubert: Piano Sonata No.21 in B flat, D.960 (40’).  It was wonderful!!! The programme explored how grief mingles with consolation, combined with a film exploring the loss of a loved one. 

After this, we headed out for a walk to Snape Warren across the beautiful boardwalks.

After a glorious walk, we headed into the maltings for a light dinner.

I changed into my evening concert outfit of this Monsoon cotton dress, bought from a charity shop in Hexham.

Funnily enough, I saw my friend from Gamelan who was there to watch the same concert as us by coincidence.  Last time I came to watch an Aldeburgh concert, I saw ANOTHER Gamelan friend!

Amusingly, when we entered the Maltings hall, it turned out out of 1000 seats, we had ended up seated next to each other by total coincidence!!

the concert was entitled Nocturne and Folk, performed by the Knussen Chamber Orchestra.

The solists were  Claire Booth, soprano  and Allan Clayton, tenor.  Ryan Wigglesworth was the the conductor.  The programme was Britten: Suite on English Folk Tunes, ‘A time there was ...’, Op.90 , Helen Grime: Folk (Britten Pears Arts co-commission),  Britten: Nocturne, Op.60, and Beethoven: Symphony No.8 in F, Op.9. I adore Britten's music and I loved the two pieces we heard, both new to me.  The piece by Helen Grimes, a major new commission with soloist Claire Booth, was really intriguing with some very evocative lyrics and musical crafting.

We'd had a fantastic day and it just remained to drive back to  Essex. I helped CBC mark some test papers as he drove (I read the answers and told me if they were right or not!) 

I very much recommend a day in Aldeburgh and a visit to the Maltings, ideally a concert!

xx

#TARDISTUESDAY The Snowmen and the Polka Dots

 Hello! 

It's been less than a year since I shared this TARDIS Tuesday inspiration but I have a little change to it.

It's an outfit worn by Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) in Doctor Who Christmas special, The Snowmen, right at the end.

It features a black silk, polka-dot blouse from Jigsaw, a pair of navy shorts from Whistles, a brown belt and a red satchel

https://www.facebook.com/ClaraOswaldCosplay/photos/the-snowmen-modern-outfit-jigsaw-bib-tab-shirt-in-blackwhistles-mim-tencel-short/146884895501986/ 

I changed out of my work outfit tonight to wear this cooler outfit. I'd also worn it on Saturday before going out to dinner but didn't get around to photographing it then.

I acquired the screen-accurate silk blouse from Jigsaw via Vinted a little while back for the princely sum of £5 and was very pleased for the cost for this soft silk blouse.

I seem to have lost my camera (actually very perplexed as I now keep losing things from my handbag. Lost my purse also...) so had to try and use my phone propped up against a watering-can. Not the best quality photos.  

I am looking forward to pairing this blouse with red- I think it will work very well against a nice scarlet-shade!

I was grateful not to have any special evening plans this evening, was planning to get my reports done but what with getting dinner ready, making lunches, doing the washing up, the thought of starting them was pretty grim...so I quickly wrote this post.  I had one orchestra last night and have another tomorrow night and I have developed a cough/sore throat/lost voice. Grrr.

Bit premature, but here is my poem for this week's prompt word which was 'Puzzle'.  I've always been rather perplexed by the name, Monkey Puzzle Tree. There was a fine example of this Chilean tree in an a road close to my childhood home and I was always rather mesmerized by it, as well as intrigued by its name.

I'm quite proud of myself that I have managed to prepare myself a mixed fruit breakfast for the past 3 weeks to eat on the train on the way to school. More often than not, I don't manage breakfast, so managing to stick to this has been great! 

One wonderful contributor has been the cherry tree in the carpark adjacent to some flats on the way home from the station.  I noticed it littering the pavement with cherries 2 summers ago, it seems NO ONE picks them, what a waste, and investigated picking some for the past 2 years.  This year was a bumper crop and I've been solidly picking them for two weeks and eating at least 12 a day, along with cherries, strawberries (now homegrown, 30 picked today, but also some from a colleague who was going to chuck them out but offered them to me first as she knows I'd be annoyed if she were just chucking them because she didn't want to take them home...along with a cucumber), grapes, plums, and, for the past two days, melon.  I forgot today and I really missed it so I made sure to get it ready tonight, for tomorrow, along with a healthy salad for my lunch! Hurrah!

Hope all is well with you!

x

12 creative uses for an empty medicine capsule

 The word for last week's Word of The Week for the Toy Press was 'capsule'.  Hmmmm, quite a tricky one to use. I did demur at first and wonder if this was my week to give it a miss but in 29 weeks of doing this, I think I've only missed one week so I was determined to come up with SOMETHING! I do keep thinking, every time I just try to write a poem without stimulus, that I have no plausible ideas, but inspiration just arrives. This morning, I bought my notebook downstairs with me just in case and reading Brian Bilston's birthday post today, inspired me to write a poem all about my own birthday. Took me 10minutes.

Last week, I thought about a Capsule wardrobe  and about a Space capsule and then that suddenly made my brain take a swerve into, what if the Capsule itself was part of your wardrobe? And that made me imagine a bee using a capsule as a space helmet and then it reminded me of the poetry workshop I took part in 2 years ago with my poet, musician acquaintance/friend, Kate Wakeling, where she used her own poem 10 uses for a pea to get us to write our own. I wrote and performed my own one during the workshop which everyone was v positive about and so I then started imagining all sorts of mini creatures using the capsule in some way, a bit like Mary Norton's Borrowers might, and the poem took flight. It was supposed to be an unrhyming list poem but somehow I noticed that several of the lines actually already had some rhyming suffixes so I adopted the second challenge of rhyming the lines. Later, I thought I'd have a go at doing some little illustrations to go with it. Admittedly a bit rushed, done on the train! 

I think, as far as I can tell, I was the only one who shared a Capsule poem on Insta so felt quite pleased with myself! 

Question : which use do you like best? 

Madeira Day 6 and 7 and 8

On day 6, we decided to make a walk which was not too far away from where we were staying.  The route is also a fairly easy one.  The route was PR8 Vereda Da Ponta de Sao Lourenco.  It is on the eastern-most peninsula on the island and is named after the caravel sailed by Boncalves Zarco, one of the three discoverers of the Archipelago of Madeira.  It is part on the Madeira Natural Park and the penisula is partial nature reserve ce.  It had a very different feel from the other walks we had done so far.  There are supposedly colonies of seagulls and other birds species. It is 4km there and another 4km back.  

Given its proximity to Funchal, it was obviously quite popular with lots of tourists so the carparks and roads leading to the start of the walk were heaving. It was also a different walk as it was quite exposed since it wasn't surrounded by trees.

It was lovely to see the sea and bays at many junctures.

I loved all the flowers we saw.

We reached the end of the walk and here you could go kiyaking or take a boat trip out to see dolphins or take a boat back. We decided not to but I enjoyed seeing the turbulent waters.

More flowers...

As we neared the car, we saw some really interesting rocks which looked very much like fossilized creatures!

We drove back to the hotel and I decided to go for a swim. To my chagrin, there were swimming lessons going on for the next two hours for a bunch of little kiddies and I couldn't use it!

CBC and I decided to try and go out for a meal locally and CBC found a place that was very individual, had a tiny menu.  Sadly, I cannot remember its name.  Weirdly, as we drove to get there, all of a sudden, I started to feel really queasy.  As we looked at the very meaty menu (game and that sort of stuff), I couldn't bear the thought of eating anything! CBC thought I was sulking because I wanted to go elsewhere but it was so strange that I felt so odd.

He ordered stuffed mushrooms

He then ordered me the beef stew.

And a salad for us.

I managed to eat a bit of salad and about 2 pieces of beef but it was a real struggle. At this point, CBC started to realise I genuinely didn't feel well and nobly ate most of the stew.

We headed back and I got into bed feeling utterly awful, my tummy felt terrible and I felt sick.

In the middle of the night, after many hours of grasping my tummy, I made my way to the toilet and then lay on the floor outside the bathroom. I felt like a change of scene might help me.  CBC came and made me go back to bed.

It was a long night.

In the morning, I was very slow getting up, still feeling very unwell.  CBC wanted to go to breakfast and hurried me up.  Just as we were about to leave, all of a sudden, I knew I had to be sick and ran for the loo.  After 6 times throwing up, I think I'd expelled whatever was irritating me.  CBC headed off for breakfast and left me behind to lay down.

After this, we decided to head out to walk.  Despite having felt so unwell and not having any food inside me, I felt it was probably best just to get outside. We headed to the north-east of the island to the PR6 trail, Levada das 25 fontes.    Waterfalls were to be involved.

It started raining heavily as we did this walk.  The first part was on road and it was quite a popular route.  We made our way along and reached the waterfalls which were lovely.  After around 8km walk, we came back and found a lovely cafe in the woods which had a massive queue. CBC and I managed to find a table. Sadly, the only thing I felt like eating was soup and they had run out of that so I decided to give it a miss.

I don't have any photos sadly!

Once we were back to the car, we decided to drive up to the northern coast to Porto Moniz where there are natural saltwater pools on the sea.

To our delight, once parking, we discovered, as it was around 4.30pm, the pool was free to enter though there were no facilities to use to change or store things.

I did a sneaky changing manoeuvre in full view under my sarong and changed into my tankini.

As I entered these breath-taking pools, it was the first time all day I felt well.

It was blissful!

We drove home, after a walk around town. I should mention at this point, that wild nasturtiums grow absolutely everywhere in Madeira and I took the opportunity to collect some seeds

When we got back to Canico and got changed, having not eaten anything, I needed something to eat so we went out to La Carbonara which had an extensive pizza and pasta menu.  I ordered a lentil soup and a half portion of Spaghetti bolognese which was absolutely enormous!  CBC ordered a meal which he didnt realise had chicken in it.  His flexitarianism doesn't include chicken so he was very sad.

The next morning, we went for our final Buffet breakfast and then packed up our things. As our flight wasn't till 5ish, we left out stuff with conceirge and walked down to the sea front in Canico via the supermarket...

 

Where I picked up this epic bag of Pick and mix crisps! I love foreign crisp trying!

I was pleasantly surprised by the beach there. It was stony but the sea looked clean and  I wished I had come to swim here when I couldn't get into the hotel pool

If it hadn't started raining and I had no towel, I might have swum.

I sat and read my book on the beach until we had to shelter in the nearby cafe because of the rain.

I doodled on some stones.

We made our way back towards the hotel, passing monster aloes.

Beautiful flowers and lots of sea food restaurants which we wish we'd known were there.

I love the street signs on Madeira. Like lots of the municipal walk ways, they are beautiful!

CBC downloaded the Bolt App and we got a very cheap ride to the airport in a yellow car.  Public transport would have taken 1.5 hours. This took 10mins!

At the airport, I marvelled at the myriad tins of sardines for sale!

We'd had a wonderful holiday in Madeira and were so grateful to have had this time away together, away from the anxieties of real life and work!

We got home around 12.30am, via the X30 bus and a taxi and then I was up for church the next morning at 9!

xx