New year ramblings

Writing and walking in the Isle of Axholme

The only way to be a writer is to write. And I guess the only way to have an online journal is to write an online journal and then press ‘Publish’. So here I am, dipping my toe into the waters of a new year. And water is certainly the theme of the day – streaming down the windows, overflowing from the puddles and making little rivers along the track. And all this water reminds me why I want to start writing here – telling the stories of my land of Axholme and how it has been changed and may be changed again by the falling and the rising of the water.

I’ve had the idea for this writing for a while now, notebooks filled with half told stories and fragments of thoughts. As I walk the footpaths and fields in all the seasons I listen to the voices of the landscape- the birds, the water in the Beck, the sighing of the wind in the willow saplings – and try to work out what they are telling me. Sometimes it’s obvious – the Beck is falling over itself to talk about the rain which has overwhelmed the drainage ditches and is fighting to overtop the banks of the Beck itself; the chiffchaff calls all along the lane to say that Spring has returned; the sheep in the meadow bleating to tell me they have returned and the lambs will soon follow. Other times I try to read the stories in the clouds massing over the Sheffield hills, or notice the smoke smudges above the Moors signalling fire; strain my eyes searching for the first swallow which will ease something in my soul for another year.

I want to follow the seasons in my writing as well as my walks, to tell the stories I find in this land I was drawn to call home. I want to search the layers of family history laid down in the churchyards around the Isle, to uncover the myths and the legends and the archaeology and all the tales that the people, who love and have loved this land, can tell.

I’ve been inspired to make this, my first post, by

Beth Kempton

and the Winter Writing Sanctuary.