Cut! by Andrew Harrison

What are you?

You painfully remind us of a brief encounter with a sharp blade or object

You’re an action that deliberately removes a body part or divides something into smaller pieces

In skilled crafting hands, you shape the material world in wood, cloth, stone and more

You fashion hairstyles and trim our lawns

You provide a gap through which roads, rail or waterways can pass

You provide vinyl records with the ability to make sounds

You are editorial omissions to text, film or performances that tell a story

You remove text in a document for pasting elsewhere

Buyers use you to reduce the costs they are prepared to spend on a house

You can end or interrupt supplies to foreign territories

Your dark side mixes illegal substances

With words you are a mocking injury or insult

You are to a final film what editing is to a story

And with your command a director ends a scene or filming stops… CUT!

 

The Vanishing Landscape by Andrew Harrison

July ice melt in Norwegian Fjord                    credit Nike Knudsen

 Sailing through the ‘night’, if such a word can be used to describe a land where the sun does not set for part of the year, we headed north under day lit, grey nimbostratus choked skies. Gently rolling seas rocked our boat, the M/S Nordstjernen. On the morning of Friday 12^th July, we left the sea behind for the calmer waters of Magdalenefjorden. The fjord stretched away to the east with a light breeze rippling its almost mirror like surface. Finely ground sediment, washed off the surrounding landscape, gave the water an almost milky blue-grey appearance. 

Surrounding the fjord on three sides, jagged mountainous peaks rose sharply. Deeply incised valleys, stretching down to the water’s edge, separated the mountains or, on occasion, were left hanging half way up the mountainside. Frozen fresh water lay as pristine white icy patches upon the mountain sides or sat as grubby white glaciers in the valley bottoms.

From the fjord shore to approximately one third up the mountainsides, stretched a noticeable horizontal brownish-grey band like a grubby tidemark. Bare ancient rock and shattered conical scree slopes gave the band its appearance. Above this band, where no ice lay, lichens and mosses covered the upper slopes in deep green and dark brown shades. 

Small icy lumps, like mini icebergs floated on the fjord close to shore. Mini-icebergs and exposed boulders provided ideal resting places for an occasional harbour or bearded seal. Guillemots, little auks and puffins flew about the M/S Nordstjernen or floated happily on the water. Nesting little auks could be heard calling noisily from one onshore vertical cliff. Seals and seabirds alike were all very happy to call this place home. 

However, despite the nature of this tranquil view, all was not well.

Kath Norgrove: Travel Writer and Environmentalist (blog links republished from April 2020)

We are delighted for Kath whose profile has just been featured by the Society for the Environment on their website at:

https://socenv.org.uk/page/profilekathnorgrove

Kath Norgrove is a Hightown Writer who has enjoyed travel writing for some time:
Check out blogs from Kath:
Passion4Travel https://kathspassion4travel.blogspot.com
Kath’s Jottings https://kathnorgrovejottings.blogspot.com
and a new blog to watch from both Kath and Andy Harrison:
Bird Splat https://birdsplatted.blogspot.com

Postcard from 2020 Guadeloupe from Kath and Andy xx

Deep Winter Reflection – Mid - January 2022 by Andy Harrison

Early morning in Mid-January.  The River Severn glides sluggishly through the Severn Valley and past the Country Park.  As it has since the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 years ago and glacial meltwaters broke through at Ironbridge taking this new path southwards..

First light reveals a white and frosty landscape coated with tiny sharp ice crystals formed as overnight temperatures dipped after dark.  Relatively warm and humid air contacting colder surfaces to allow icy crystals to form.  New shoots, grasses, bracken and dead vegetation left over from the summer months lie with a frosty coating in open areas.  Under thicker tree cover and in more sheltered spots the frost has not penetrated.  Long pale-yellow furry catkins hang from Hazel twigs like nature’s decorations and frozen water droplets cling like jewels.

A warm yellow-orange glow in the east hints at the rising sun.  As the skies grow light Song Thrush, Robins and Blackbirds strike up an early morning chorus.  Soon Jackdaws fly over. Their recognisable ‘chuck-chuck’ call joining in with a Green Woodpeckers’ piping laughter that resonates from the trees.  In the distance Canada Geese honk faintly.  Further up river, three Red Breasted Merganser silently glide out from the bank before taking off northwards on beating wings towards Bridgnorth.

Ripples Through Time by Andy Harrison

Continue your own story from the celebrated opening:

‘Time is not a line but a dimension like the dimensions of space…’

Time is not a line but a dimension like the dimensions of space.  The three vectors of space showing changes in terms of distance and height.  Time records changes through history and hints at what may lay ahead in the future.

We stopped at a viewpoint next to an interpretation board headed ‘Ripples Through Time’.  Before us, the ground dropped sharply, 20m to 30m, into an old quarry.  It’s bottom covered with greenery and grasses, shrubs and skeletal trees.  In spring and summer months alkaline loving wildflowers such as Scabious and Bee Orchids would add colourful splashes along with Common Daisies, Birdsfoot Trefoil and Meadow Buttercups.

Dominating the quarry floor was a rounded grey rocky mass.  Off to the left a former quarry wall exhibited thin interbedded limestone and mudstone layers dipping off to the west.

Delineating the quarries far edge were thorny bushes, trees, and green painted palisade fencing.  Beyond a low-lying housing estate stretched away like a sea of brown and grey covering the local landscape.  On the far western horizon the land rose once again to another wooded hill.

‘Let us look at our journey so far’, our guide announced.

Autumn Equinox 2021 by Andy Harrison

Welsh Equinox: Kath Norgrove

The Autumnal or Fall Equinox occurs annually on 22^nd or 23^rd September when, after completing three quarters of its orbit, the Earth’s equatorial plane passes through the geometric centre of the sun’s disk.  Temporally opposite is the Spring or Vernal Equinox that occurs annually on 20^th March.  Equinox is derived from the Latin aequinoctium, from aequus (equal) and nox (genitive noctis) (night) and represents almost equal global day and nighttime durations.  As the name suggests, September’s Autumnal Equinox astronomically marks the first day of autumn.

This year’s Autumnal Equinox took place on Wednesday 22^nd September 2021.  The date coinciding with our latest holiday to Wales and having arrived at Porthmadog, Gwynedd.  Sunrise was around 7.02 am and the weather started mild and cloudy with a light breeze and wet on the ground from overnight rain.

After a quick breakfast at our hotel, we headed to Porthdinllaen, a promontory on the Llyn Peninsular north coast adjacent to the town of Morfa Nefyn. 

SMOKE by Andrew Harrison

I am born from fire. From the combustion of all things flammable 

I am a thing of heat, soot and ash.

I represent many things, a portent or warning, a signal or metaphor for hidden truths

My existence occurs on various scales 

From the puff of a cigarette and the rising trail from a cosy log fire, to the terrifying signs of a building ablaze or an approaching wild inferno

In the open I disperse and rise, swirl and dance

Rising above whatever cleansing apocalypse is happening below 

Only warmer air or wind will check my ascent or direction 

In enclosed spaces I will choke you

Yet you use me to communicate. To flavour, brown, cook and preserve your meat and fish.

In autumn I will rise from your bonfires to consume summer's waste, transporting nature's perished matter to the heavens 

Wind and rain may disperse me, but not until the flames are dowsed shall I cease to be.