Photographs

On By Mick CanningIn photographs37 Comments

I’ve become very bad at taking photographs. Not exactly lazy, it’s more that my focus is on the world around me. More and more now I find that when I’m out for a walk all my senses are tuned into the world around me – sounds, sights, smells – and I feel I just want to take them all in, rather than try to record them. I just want to be in the moment.

And, incidentally, a photograph is a poor substitute. It can never capture a complete experience – the colour is frequently leached out by bright sunshine, I cannot hear the wind in the trees, or smell the scents of autumn. I cannot feel the nip of the sharp early morning air. The sounds surrounding me would all be lost. The leaves suddenly whirling all around me in the breeze. I would lose the deceptive simplicity and is-ness of all this.

And yet, I enjoy photographs. I use them a lot in my writing. How to square the circle? Must I only take photographs on days I set out to focus on photography? They are good memory joggers. You may not get the sounds or scents (or sharp nips), but a photo may well remind you of them. And they can be things of beauty on their own, of course.

I think I need to find a way of taking photographs without disturbing whatever is my current train of thought at the time. A sort of Zen-like process.

Imbolc

On By Mick CanningIn Imbolc, Spring54 Comments

Yesterday was Imbolc, February 1st. Imbolc is a pagan festival marking the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Honouring the goddess Brigid, goddess of fertility, it celebrates the beginning of Spring.

And so I went looking for signs of Spring. It was a real Spring-like day. Blue skies. Sunshine that felt almost warm. Birds singing. Stuff growing. There was a Red Admiral, but I didn’t get a picture. I did get a few pictures of other stuff, though.

Four years ago it was also a lovely day – we were walking on the South Downs – perhaps Imbolc is often nice. I’d look it up if I could, but it seems very difficult to find detailed weather records on the internet; I’ve been looking as I’d like to check a few things. Anyone know of any sites?

Sunny and Spring-like.

Primroses are out.

There were some wild daffodils coming up in the woods. Not in flower yet, but it shouldn’t be long.

The cultivated varieties are already in flower.

As are the Camelias.

And the snowdrops are still around, although past their best.

At ten past four, the sun was still out. This might not sound a big deal, but after the real Winter months it feels like a definite progression. Later, because of the clear sky, predictably it quickly became much colder.

We’re not quite there yet.

New ‘zine – Issue 1

On By Mick CanningIn Echoes and Imaginings, Folk traditions, psychogeography, Zines58 Comments

I’ve completed my first new year’s project.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present Echoes and Imaginings, issue one.

Quite pleased with the title, actually. My aim is to produce at least four issues, although whether I do or not depends largely on how quickly I can put each issue together. I want them to roughly reflect the seasons of the year, without being too dogmatic about it. There is a slant towards folklore, psychogeography and a bit of speculation, as well as photography and poetry. Future issues may well have some of my artwork included.

I’m already writing articles for issue 2…

In this issue you can find Hoodening, Wassailing, a meditation on time, photographs, poetry, and more. There are lots of trees. Some of the articles have appeared here as posts, although there is some re-writing, but most of the poetry and the pictures are new. It is available through my Etsy shop, or just message me directly (I use PayPal).

Personally, I reckon it’s a thing of beauty.

And as well as these four issues, I have ideas for some others, which I expect to bring out at random times.

At the moment, I feel this is the way for me to go. I don’t see myself finishing a novel any time soon, although I do have an almost finished one sitting there. I don’t currently feel inclined to get it published, though. And equally, I don’t feel inclined to go through all the hassle of submitting poems or short stories to different publications or into competitions.

And on another note, you have probably seen on other blogs the ongoing issues of pirated e-books (especially on Amazon, I hear). I think we have AI to thank for a lot of this, and it seems so many authors are having their books ripped or plagiarised it’s becoming ridiculous. For that reason, I have simply decided my books will no longer be available as e-books, and have deleted them.

New Year New You Meh

On By Mick CanningIn books, New Year, reading, resolutions42 Comments

Anyone still following their New Year’s resolutions? Good on you. As a rule I don’t make them, but this year I have drawn up a bit of a list. Partly, this is a coincidence. I’m on Goodreads, and they encourage you to set a reading target for the year, which I usually do as I think it provides that little extra spur to get on with it when I don’t feel much like reading.

When I’m feeling a bit meh, for example.

But the timing of the Goodreads prompt, being at the start of the year, not unnaturally suggested I might compile a little list of targets in other areas, which I did, but which I’m not going to be foolish enough to share here. Anyway, those few of you who follow me on Goodreads might notice that the couple of books I’ve been reading so far this year are books I’ve read before. And that’s because one of the resolutions I’ve made is that I shall re-read lots of books this year that I have read and enjoyed in the past. Favourites of mine. Books that give me real pleasure to read. In fact, the TBR pile beside my bed is currently eight books, not including the one I’m reading, six of which I’ve read before.

Re-reading a book is always a good idea anyway, as one inevitably notices things one didn’t notice the first time around. But my motive is pleasure, pure and simple. I shall still read some new books this year, but I shall focus strongly on those I’ve read before that I love. We’re often told, in one way or another, that we ‘should’ read this or that book, or that it is an ‘essential’ read (I know I’ve been guilty of it myself in the past, and will no doubt do it again). Well, this year, those folk can shove off. And take their ‘essential’ reads with them.

New Year’s Resolution lists seem to be routinely full of ways to ‘improve’ the maker of the list – make them fitter, get a better job, etc etc – rather than simply to bring pleasure. And although that’s perfectly laudable, it’s important not to forget pleasure for its own sake. It’ll help us get through the year.

A Jolly Wassail and the Howlers (and not forgetting the Hoodeners!)

On By Mick CanningIn animal guising, culture, customs, Folk traditions, folklore, history, Hooden Horse, Hoodening, kent, Wassailing34 Comments

Yesterday, we went Wassailing.

If you care to Google (other search engines are available) Wassailing, you will learn it traditionally takes place on the Twelfth Night (after Christmas), i.e. 5th January, and is a British custom. You will also discover that wassailing involves groups (traditionally men) visiting apple orchards, usually after dark, and to encourage the trees to be especially fruitful the following year songs are sung, trees might be beaten with sticks to wake them up, and offerings of bread soaked cider left in the branches of certain trees. Perhaps one particular tree would be selected to represent the whole orchard.

A Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect published in 1875 has something to say on the subject. It defines howlers as ‘boys who in former times went round wassailing the orchards. A custom now nearly obsolete. The custom of wassailing used to be observed on the eve of the Epiphany, when the howlers went to the orchards, and there encircling one of the best bearing trees, drank the following toast,-

‘Here’s a health to thee, old apple tree,

May’st thou bud, may’st thou blow,

May’st thou bear apples enow!

Hats full! Caps full!

Bushel, bushel, sacks full!

And my pockets full, too! Huzza!

The wassailers derived their name from the Anglo-Saxon salutation on pledging one to drink, which was waes hael, be of health; to which the person pledged replied drinc hael, I drink your health.‘

Epiphany occurs usually on 6th January, or on the first Sunday falling between 2nd and 8th January, which tends to tie in roughly with Twelfth Night, at least as far as 6th January goes.

Groups of wassailers might also take the opportunity to go from door to door singing wassailing songs (like the one above and plentiful variations) to earn a penny or two. It is possible that the tradition of Christmas carolling derived from this. A wassail bowl was often also taken around, which would hold spicy mulled cider. This might perhaps also be offered at houses visited, although my copy of the 1849 Chambers Dictionary suggests a wassail bowl was used to drink in the New Year and does not mention anything about wassailing itself. I suppose this might represent a sort of official disapproval of the tradition. But it does confirm that drinking was involved, and I’ve no doubt the revellers enjoyed their share.

Howlers would appear to be a Sussex tradition, the name deriving from the boys ‘howling’ the orchard.

Away from the south of England, wassailing appears to have been more widespread, in the sense that not just apple orchards, but also bees might be wassailed, to encourage them to be productive, and it might also happen at other times of the year.

It being 6th January, we took a bus and a couple of trains and made our way to the village of Worth, just outside Sandwich, in East Kent, to not only join in with wassailing apple orchards but also watch some Hooden Horse antics. Hooden Horses you shriek in confusion? Look no further than this post, which even explains why we chose to go to East Kent.

Anyway, ale was drunk in the pub where we began the afternoon, with the Hooden Horse company performing their version of the traditional play – this particular company have recently revived the custom in this area – before we set off (horse and all) to wassail a nearby orchard on our way into Sandwich. In this case, the wassailing consisted of making plenty of noise as we passed the orchard – many a shout of waes hael and drinc hael, ringing of hand bells, and clashing of sticks. Personally, I am convinced there will be a bountiful harvest there next autumn. Then on to Sandwich for further Hooden Horse Hi-jinks (and further ale) in a welcoming taproom, before we made our way back home (since we had quite a long journey), although hardier folk than us went on for further malarky elsewhere in town.

Warning! Do not let this ‘doctor’ anywhere near your loved ones!

Gathering in the pub car park before the Wassailing walk

In the taproom, Sandwich

  • several of these photos courtesy of Sabina

We’ll just have to look out for another malarky opportunity soon, I guess.

Wednesday December 27th

On By Mick CanningIn environment, natural world, seasons, walking, wildlife43 Comments

It is windy this morning and the forecast is for rain and high winds later in the day. Consequently, I go out for a walk straight after breakfast, heading for the woods beside the common where I know I will be sheltered from the worst of it, should the winds get up soon. Above, the clouds are thick and dark and what light does make it through the mirk is thin and silvery, glittering coldly on leaves and puddles, the latter wrinkled with tiny wavelets scurrying in bursts across their surfaces.

A couple of rooks are calling irritably overhead, buffeted by the breeze, as I reach the edge of the wood. A few paces in, I pass along the edge of a shallow, long-disused sandstone quarry, its banks perforated with badger holes, and with other entrances deeper into the woods. The whole of the sett appears to occupy upwards of a fifth of an acre, although there may well be entrances I have not yet found.

Moving on, I find I am walking to the rhythm of a tune in my head, something that happens to me frequently. This time, it is a track from an album by Stick in the Wheel, a kind of punk-folk group, the track being the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. Stick in the Wheel are a group I have only recently discovered, and the only album I have of theirs (so far!) gets played rather a lot. This particular tune has a very pronounced beat and I wonder, as I often do, whether the tune has come into my head as the beat matches my pace, or whether I have unconsciously altered my pace to fit the tune.

I also decide it doesn’t matter which it is.

It is still early enough in the day for there to be very few other people about. In about an hour’s time the air will be filled with barking and shouting as the regular dog walkers invade, but for now I have the place almost to myself.

I have just begun to re-read Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Ways, and in this he tells us that at the time of writing (2012) he reckoned he had walked perhaps 7,000 or 8,000 miles along footpaths in his lifetime. Does this mean each mile is a unique mile, in that he means he has walked this distance all along different routes, or does it include the day to day walks along local routes, routes such as the one I repeat day after day? He doesn’t make that clear, and I would guess it includes all repetitions. He then goes on to quote De Quincy saying that Wordsworth walked a total of 175,000 – 180,000 miles in his lifetime (although how did he know?), which would clearly include his repeated local walks, if true. I wonder how many I have done and make a vague stab at guessing a figure. At various times I have worked out I tend to walk an average of 20 miles a week, allowing for good and bad periods of walking, of which probably one half would be on footpaths. There were times when I did much less, and times when I did much more, but it seems a reasonable estimate. That would give me a figure of between 25,000 and 27,000 miles in my adult life so far, which is probably wildly out but is quite similar to Robert Macfarlane’s.

I’ve no idea what to conclude from that.

But I know I would probably walk quite a bit further if I didn’t tend to stop so frequently just to stand and stare at my surroundings. I do it often enough to sometimes irritate those I walk with, although they’re usually kind enough to say nothing about it. But there are also those who just get their heads down and walk, walk, walk, seemingly on some mission to cover as many miles as possible in the shortest possible time, barely able to glance around them as they go. What is that about, unless it’s some sort of charity event and they’re raising money by the mile? Where is the pleasure?

The Welsh poet W H Davies wrote ‘What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?’

What indeed?

I’ve been doing it quite a lot again this morning. It seems so important. Surely everyone must do it to a degree?

Pilgrimage

On By Mick CanningIn pilgrimage, Religion, spirituality, travel, walking41 Comments

We recently returned from a week in Cornwall, and where we stayed was close to the end of a pilgrim route, St Michael’s Way. This is a short twelve and a half mile walk from the North Cornish coast to St Michael’s Mount, in Mount’s Bay on the South coast. Although the route is such a short one – a day’s walk for most people – it still apparently qualifies for a pilgrim ‘stamp’ on the official pilgrim passport for the very much longer long-distance Camino pilgrimage, since in the Middle Ages many pilgrims walked this route to the Benedictine monastery on the island, then took a boat to France to continue on towards Santiago de Compostela.

I am interested in learning – as far as it is possible for the staunchly non-religious person to learn – what the religious get out of pilgrimages. In the past, they were generally viewed as a way of gaining merit, of putting a few points in the bank when it came to whether you were headed for heaven or hell in the afterlife. Frequently, they were also undertaken in the hope of cures from diseases; various remnants of saints such as bones or clothing were held to have miraculous properties, and the touch of these might cure whichever disease ailed you.

Personally, I view pilgrimage as a spiritual thing, rather than a religious one. Something that puts the pilgrim in touch with their ‘finer’ feelings – a way of understanding what is important in life; relationships, simplicity, art maybe, minimal possessions – we will all have a different interpretation of this. In the past I have considered attempting one of the Camino routes – through France and Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. These are long, serious, routes, hundreds of miles long. Had I done so, I would have walked these for pleasure, as well as a personal challenge, rather than as a pilgrimage. Now, though, I am curious to see how much of the ‘religious’ experience I might have.

Whether visiting a church or a standing stone, a ‘holy’ well or a Sufi shrine, all are invested with spirituality. All are invested with meaning to many people and although I know I will never be able to experience the feelings of, say, a Christian at a site they consider holy, I might experience something akin to it. I’m not suggesting I might feel awe at the shrine of a saint, more that I might get an impression of the feelings of the visitors who do. And because I cannot quite find the words to express what I might hope to find, I reckon that’s an indication it’s an experiment worth making.

By Coincidence…

On By Mick CanningIn Art, Painting38 Comments

On the same day I put up the post of my oil pastel painting of a Nepalese doorway (ten days ago), I sold a picture in my Etsy shop. Quite a different style and subject, though. I painted this as a practice piece, and it seemed to turn out quite decently (if you like that kind of thing), so it didn’t suffer the usual fate of my practice pieces.

So it’s been sent off to a new home where I hope it will be enjoyed.

Boats (after Rowland Hilder) 2003 Watercolour on paper 13ins x 9.5ins

100 Word Stories

On By Mick CanningIn Fiction, murder, music, short stories, writing18 Comments

I know one hundred word stories are a thing on here, or ninety nine word stories, someone supplying a prompt – either a word or a phrase or perhaps a photo – but I was just playing around and came up with this. So no prompts, just a bit of fun.

Those of you of a certain age and musical heritage may identify with it…

‘This was a particularly brutal murder, sergeant.’

‘Yes, sir. With around three hundred people watching. Open and shut case, fortunately.’

‘And he was the keyboard player?’

‘Yes. He was about fifteen minutes into the Hammond Organ solo when he was killed.’

‘Who did it? A member of the audience?’

‘No, the vocalist. She bludgeoned him with the microphone stand. Really vicious. All she’s saying is this was the eighteenth night of the tour and there were still twenty seven to go.’

‘Didn’t any of the other band members attempt to stop her?’

‘No, sir. Apparently, they were egging her on.’