Quest and Sunwalk weekend

Firstly just how brave am I publishing this rather unflattering photo on my blog? But a photo of me in my ivy-covered bra was promised on Twitter so I have to keep to my word, even if I do look dreadful. Believe me it's the best of the bunch, so you can imagine how ghastly the others were!

But let's be chronological here. Quest first, on Saturday. This is held at Newton Abbot racecourse in Devon every year at this time. Last year's was a washout weather-wise but I had high hopes for this year. Because of my sponsored walk on Sunday I could only go on Saturday so Mr B, my 12 year old step-son and I set out almost at the crack of dawn (well, 8.30 but you know what I'm like in the morning by now) down to Devon. A beautiful day which clouded over as we went south and west. By the time we arrived it was overcast and grey and the clouds seemed ominously heavy. Typical!

We did a quick circuit - it's a lovely venue with the indoor bit jam-packed with the usual Health and Healing /Mind, Body, Spirit stalls which I'm getting quite accustomed to this year, and also a lot of outdoor gazebos and tents with more ethnic/new age stuff for sale. I tried to persuade Mr B to buy a colourful Afghan hat but he's still a bit of a refusenik about anything too unconventional. Although improving by the year. My step-son bought a black sort of gangster hat though - mostly I think because it made him think of Michael Jackson in the Billie-Jean video - and he did a hilarious impersonation later.

I said hello to many friends with stalls including Mercury Rising (great books, Tarot cards, etc) and Celtic Moon (beautiful things like moongazy hares, jewellery and a wonderful range of head-dresses). After a healthy lunch (Mr B's diet is going very well indeed) we went along to Bob Broadway's bookstall where I'd arranged to be all afternoon to sign books. I've only recently added Bob as one of my hosting booksellers, and it was great to meet him. He's completely Stonewylded which helps enormously and surprised me as he comes across as someone quite sceptical and business-like. But as we know, Stonewylde seems to go down well with all sorts, and he's 100% behind me, promoting the books and looking for opportunities.

We spent a busy afternoon talking to new people and selling books, but also meeting up with Stonewylde fans and readers who'd come over specially. I really do love that. Quest is such a popular event and there were many Stonewylde readers from all over the country there, from as far afield as Cornwall to Leeds! They all came up for a hug and a chat, and I enjoyed that very much. During the afternoon the heavy grey clouds gradually but sneakily cleared and the sun blazed out. I was wearing a sleeveless summer dress and no hat, and Bob had put me outside his gazebo at my own little table. The suncream was in the car, Mr B and my stepson were wandering around and doing interesting things like a drumming workshop, and meanwhile I gradually burned! So stupid - I was really cross with myself.

Whilst we were there, Fiona who organised Quest came to meet me and invited me to do a speaking slot or workshop next year. I gladly accepted (it's such a popular event and I came to it too late this year) and am looking forward to that already. We also met Bo and Carolyn who are the organisers of Kernowkopia, the wonderful Cornish festival in Newquay in November. They have plastered me all over their promotional literature which was everywhere at Quest (these festival organisers are very supportive of each other which is lovely to see) and this earned me some Brownie points with my step-son, who now believes I'm actually quite famous! I'm so looking forward to Kernowkopia too and hope to get most of my Christmas shopping done there!

We spent the night in Bristol with family, and I had nightmares all night long it seemed about my half marathon walk the next day. I was really suffering from sunburn, and in my dreams I'd forgotten not only my competitor's number and safety pins, but also my sunhat. I was told by the organisers that I couldn't take part because of this, which was a bit of a relief. But I woke early and realised, yes, it was all a dream (and that takes me back to my teaching days when every child in the class used to finish their stories with that immortal line until I cruelly banned it). So ... smothered in high factor suncream (horse/bolting/gate?) and feeling ridiculous in my ivy-covered bra and hat, I was driven by my lovely Mr B to Ashton Court where the Sunwalk starts.

Once there I was no longer ridiculous at all as every one of the thousands of women (and some men) present was sporting a decorated bra. Mostly pink and fluffy, it has to be said, but still ridiculous. How brave are some women! All shapes and sizes, and walking through the streets of Bristol in a bra, showing off your tummy too, takes a bit of courage. Walk the Walk is the brand-name of this charity, and it organises the famous marathon Moonwalk as well as this half-marathon Sunwalk. The millions of pounds raised by their events around the country all goes to help fight cancer and its horrible effects. One of their many projects is to provide scalp-coolers to chemo units. I saw these when I used to sit with my friend Debbie during her chemo sessions. They're like an old fashioned hood-dryer, and they help combat hairloss which is often the final demoralising straw for the cancer victim.

The field at Ashton Court was teeming with colour, balloons, excited women and lots of flesh. It was hot and sunny and my sunburn was throbbing under its sunscreen. We did a big razzamatazzy warm up with music and lots of cheering and clapping, but then the lady on stage asked for a minute's silence to remember why we were all there. The whole arena and the thousands of people went silent, and then by pure coincidence there was a great peal of bells from a nearby church. That was the undoing of me, as my friend Debbie had always loved the sound of churchbells. I'd signed up for the Sunwalk whilst she was still alive and it hit me anew that I would never see her again in this life.

Then we were off - so many bodies pouring through the narrow start gates under the massive digital clock. Up the hill, a stomping good pace but too many people. I usually walk alone and this felt like being in a herd of buffalo! But gradually as time wore on people found their pace and it thinned a bit. I tried to keep fairly near the front and a fast pace, mostly because there were only a few toilet stops and the prospect of queuing with thousands of women was not good. So I marched along, listening to snippets of conversations, looking at the amazing diversity of decorated bras, smiling to the many people who lined our way wishing us well and cheering us on. It was great!

Until it started to rain. I don't like rain or cold and am not very hardy. Bristol's quite high up and exposed in places, and the downpour hit when I was up on a windy open plain. The organisers hadn't of course handed out the little plastic ponchos as it had been blazing sun when we left with only a few innocent cotton wool clouds about. Hah! I was glad of my hat as the huge raindrops lashed down for a couple of miles. To make it worse we actually went past Bristol Zoo whilst it was pouring, and I knew that Mr B and my stepson were inside, probably warm and cosy in Bugworld or something. I was very tempted to peel off from the walkers and join them!

All the way along right from the start, I'd felt like little Gretel in the old Grimm's Fairytale. There'd been a strange sporadic trail of cerise coloured feathers which started at the beginning of the walk. At some point in my efforts to get near the front, I'd overtaken a group of women all wearing bright pink boas (yes the event was at times slightly reminiscent of a hen-party but without the stilettoes) and had thought "Phew! No more pink feathers to follow!" Don't get me wrong - I like pink (although maybe not cerise) and there's nothing wrong with a boa in the right place, but for some reason these ubiquitous feathers were reminding me of the dreaded pink socks incident in the labyrinth, which many who've attended my talk will know all about. I felt a similar irrational irritation at the sight of them, so was pleased when I finally overtook their source.

Anyway, we crossed the Clifton Suspension Bridge (spectacular!) and then the rain eased off and the pavements and roads began to steam in the brilliant sunshine. It felt tropical! My spirits lifted as I saw the 11 mile marker - only two more to go! I was aching by this point but okay. I kept remembering bringing parties of primary school kids on their residential trips to Bristol a few years ago. We had some great times, but if only I'd had a glimpse then of July 5th 2009! I was several stone lighter now, happily married and an author! My old self would never in a million years have believed it - and walking 13 miles would have been out of the question then. The only good thing then was that my friend was alive and well.

Finally, we triumphantly turned into the top gates of Ashton Court! It was literally downhill from now on - which when your legs are so aching and tired is actually worse than being on the straight. And then I saw it - a damn cerise coloured feather! No!!! I'd been so convinced I'd finally overtaken them! Passing back under the digital clock through cheering crowds was wonderful, as was having the medal on its pink ribbon put around my neck. Sadly Mr B was still at the zoo at this point so I don't have a triumphant photo, but the banana I was given was almost as welcome as him. And the fetching foil wrap too, for by this time it was overcast again and with the walking over and the seizing up beginning, I needed something to keep me warm.

I loved doing the Sunwalk and hope to do it again next year - maybe repeating the whole weekend with Quest on the Saturday and Sunwalk on the Sunday, if the dates coincide again. Today I'm in agony but there's no time for that as the 5km Race for Life run is less than two weeks away and I need to start training for that again. It's all gone out the window with this recent heatwave. But no more excuses - tomorrow I'll go running. Provided my legs work, which they certainly don't today! I'm hobbling around like an old lady and with a burnt nose and shoulders too.

Still in caterpillar form maybe?

Oh dear! From promising an exciting metamorphosis into a "blogger extraordinaire" I've now shrivelled back into caterpillar form - can't even pretend I'm a chrysalis. What went wrong? Mark Thwaite would be so disappointed in me, failing my marriage in just the first week. So much for daily commitment.

How do regular bloggers do it? I follow Dovegreyreader Scribbles, one of the best literary blogs in the world (literally in the world as she has followers from around the globe) and she posts without fail every day. She actually posts the day's blog at night-time and today when I saw some of her responses from other countries I realised why. Else it would be a day late across the water. I love her blog - she manages to review a book a day almost, and also chats about other ordinary things. She posted a little survey today asking about why people follow her blog (she's giving a talk at Port Eliot LitFest later this month - more about this another time) and one of my responses was it's because reading her blog is like popping into her sitting room - intimate and cosy and very interesting.

One of the problems I have with blogging is that I haven't yet found my blogging voice - probably because I haven't stuck at it enough. I'm torn between different identities and don't know my audience. I feel that my readers who are complete Stonewylde obsessives already get a good dose of me on our community site. The more casual browser can find lots to read on the main website. So who's reading this? What do you need or want? Tricky one. Darcy (one of the high profile members of our community whom I finally met last weekend) says he wants to read personal stuff that's amusing. As he is a brilliant blogger himself, I feel I can't write anything that will impress him. We'll have to see. Let me know how I'm doing, Darcy!

Last weekend Mr B and I were in Buxton for the Health and Healing Festival. I managed to excel in my late-leaving. Four hours later than planned! Four hours!! So of course most of the driving from Reading to Buxton was in the rush hour (and didn't I know it in the mish-mash of roads around Coventry!) and it took me five hours to reach the B&B. Absolutely pathetic - and to prove how bad this was, let me tell you it took us three hours to get back on Sunday.

We were staying in a gorgeous farmhouse B&B, and I'm now a complete convert to this form of accommodation. So much nicer than a similar priced hotel which can be grotty and impersonal. We stayed at Stoop Farm with Karen and her family and were made to feel so welcome. Karen has only recently converted a barn into B&B rooms (three of them) and no expense has been spared in making the place luxurious (for a farmhouse - it's not the Ritz!) and personal. Every little detail was taken care of and the cooked breakfast (of which I'm not normally a fan) was so delicious. I definitely recommend the place.

We went for a wonderful walk in the Peaks that rise all around the farmhouse. We followed an old cobbled pack-horse trail down into a valley where it meets a river, an ancient stone bridge and a meadow. I've been trying to resize a photo of this to post here, but Mr B in his wisdom has a complicated system of storing photos. He also insists on taking large ones (I mean in terms of Mb's) and the combination of these factors means I've just wasted a whole hour with no photo to show for it. Grrr! And I nearly lost this post altogether and at this rate the whole blog thing is going to end in divorce. Sorry Mark!

Buxton itself was lovely - a really buzzing and attractive little town with proper shops rather than the homogenized chain stores you get in every town across the country. The Pavilion where the Health and Healing Festival was taking place was brilliant. A pink round interior with lots of glass, although the glass wasn't so good in the stifling heat. Loads of my wonderful Stonewylders turned up to say hello and that was the best bit. I gave my talks under the most appalling conditions imaginable as the room I'd been allocated had a glass roof and no windows! The aforementioned Darcy was there, smiling and nodding to me through the ordeal, as were other Stonewylde readers. The funny thing was that Darcy mentioned afterwards in his blog how the electric fan I was standing in front of was blowing my hair all over the place, and every time I mentioned the word "hare" (which was often as this is largely what my talk's about) my hair billowed out around me. I can't say I noticed as I was busy fighting off waves of faintness, but Darcy said it looked quite dramatic. It's what they do to models, isn't it? Waft their hair around them to make them look windswept and glamorous.

We also visited Arbor Low whilst we were staying in the area. This is a beautiful stone circle set in a round ditch system. The huge stones are all lying on the grass rather than upright, with sheep leaping about. We watched a couple of sheep playing "dare" on a stone, going closer and closer to the edge until one pushed the other off. They kept climbing back on and doing it again and I really think they were playing. We basked in the setting sun for some time on the stones, on our way back to the car passing two small children clutching chicken eggs. "They're still warm!" one of them cried, and I remembered how I dreamed as a child of growing up on a farm. There were muddy bikes everywhere and I thought how magical it must be to live so close to a sacred site with warm eggs in nests to collect on a summer's evening.

It was a lovely weekend altogether, despite my late start. Attending these festivals is work, but not as we know it, Jim. We get to travel all over the country, stay in a variety of places we'd never normally visit, meet up with the most wonderful people who are all Stonewylded and so very friendly, and also get to publicise the books too! Darcy very cleverly described the festival as if he'd been transported to Constantinople in mediaeval times, and that's exactly what these Mind/Body/Spirit events feel like. A complete mish-mash of smells, noises, and sights, with vendors ranging from gorgeous to downright weird all touting their wares and offering their services in an enclosed and crowded place. Very exotic.

I must now, after a quick dash to Waitrose for tonight's food, prepare for our visit tomorrow to Quest at Newton Abbot where it will all start again. I'm not giving a talk tomorrow as by the time I'd accepted my invitation all the speaking slots were taken. But I'll be at Bob Broadway's bookstall signing copies of Stonewylde and chatting to people. And Sunday we're in Bristol as I'm doing the Sunwalk - wearing a green bra covered in ivy leaves. If you're very lucky Mr B might sort his system out so I can actually post a novelty photo of this. If not it'll be another good old book-signing photo! Have a lovely weekend, folks.

Slapped wrist

Yesterday I attended a conference in Bloomsbury called "Publishing Laid Bare". It was also the book launch in the evening of Philip Carr-Gomm's latest book (written with Richard Heygate) "The Book of English Magic". So I hopped on the Paddington train with Mr B at the crack of dawn (or so it seemed to someone who after a lifetime of getting up early to go to work now makes a point of not emerging before 8am if possible) and arrived in Russell Square bang on time.

The conference was good. Organised by Legend Press, there was an impressive array of panelists offering "straight-talking advice and useful information" about a range of publishing topics, not least where the industry is heading. A couple of weeks ago I attended another conference/seminar thingy organised by Nielsen, the people who run ISBN codes and give out figures for how many books are sold each week, amongst other cutting edge stuff. Whilst I was there I felt a bit of a medium sized fish amongst some minnows, largely because one lovely person who works there said how impressed she was with Stonewylde's sales figures which she'd looked up earlier. And there were people present who didn't know about anything at all, being new to publishing, and didn't understand about things like the Gardners/Waterstone's double act, how ISBNs work, what enhanced data is, etc.

However at yesterday's conference I felt again like a minnow myself. There's always this slightly uncomfortable moment when people say "Oh, Moongazy Publishing - which authors do you work with?" and I have to admit that I only work with myself, being both Moongazy Publishing Ltd and also Kit Berry of Stonewylde. But that said, the conference yesterday was very interesting indeed and I got to meet some influential people, which of course is one of the main reasons for attending such events.

I'm off to Buxton in a minute (well, about 90 of them just as soon as I've finished ironing my Stonewylde T-shirt and packing our case) for a weekend of talks and book signings. I've never been to the Peak District before and Mr B and I are staying in a rather luxurious farmhouse B&B with exotic decor, judging by the website. So I can't write more now as time is pressing and Mr B has warned me not to be stuck on the M1 going north in the rush hour. He knows how notoriously late I always am at leaving when there isn't a specific deadline to meet. It's always a matter of "I'll just do this" and "I'll just finish that" and then several hours later I leave the house in a foul mood because I'm so late. So I must stop writing this now, but I just wanted to say this:

One of the people I met yesterday was Mark Thwaite, a big mover and shaker in the industry. He said that being a blogger is a commitment. He said it's like marriage - has to be worked on regularly. He said you can't blog a bit and then leave it for weeks or months (yes, I know, I know!). Either you blog regularly, ideally daily but if not then at very regular intervals during the week, or don't bother. It's not fair on your followers, Mark said, not to make that commitment. And he also said it's a good discipline, like writing a public journal. One of the problems I've had with keeping up my blog is that I'm not sure if I have anything interesting to say. I feel there should be some momentous news to impart before I log onto Moongazy Girl and broadcast my thoughts to the world. But according to Mark, blogs have got to be interesting but not necessarily momentous. I suppose there are enough keen Stonewylders out there to make this worth working at.

So watch this space, folks! I'm off for the weekend soon (80 minutes and counting now!) and will be really busy at the Health and Healing festival, and also hopefully finding some time to walk in the Peak District for a couple of hours at least and we MUST visit Arbor Low which I've been told is a wonderful stone circle. But as from next week, Moongazy Girl will metamorphasise into a blogger extraordinaire! And I'll need lots of feedback please to let me know if I'm on the right track or boring you all silly!

Have a great weekend, everyone. If you're coming to one of my "Reconnect with Nature" talks in Buxton I shall see you soon. And next week I'll tell you all about Mark Thwaite, Scott Pack, Philip Carr-Gomm and much more!

Sweet Tweets

My step-daughter said last night that she can't see the point of Twitter, and I know what she means. Up until very recently I felt the same. We have so many social networking sites already - I'm on Facebook, My Space and Bebo simply because as an author trying to reach her audience, it's all part of making contact with one's readership. Mr B and I also run our own successful social networking site (http://www.stonewylde.net) where we have an ever-growing and very loyal membership. Real friendships have been made via this site, as opposed to the schmalzy stuff you find on places like MySpace, where friendship is a term bandied around by people who'll never meet, have no idea about each other and stay "in touch" by sending glittery animated images to one another on a daily basis. On our site people "chat" in real time and post their thoughts and opinions on a wide range of discussions. They share photos and videos, and many of them have actually arranged to meet in groups and discovered that they actually like each other in real life too! It's not everyone's cup of tea of course, but it's all good fun.

But Twitter is something different - one of its definitions is a "micro-blog" and I too found it hard to think what possible purpose this could serve. In our society today we suffer, I believe, from an overload of communication. We're bombarded with newsfeeds, blogs, texts, etc. My daughter practically lives on Facebook and constantly updates her status to include the most trivial and mundane of all details, just as her friends do. What's the point? And it seemed to me that Twitter with its 140 character limit was even worse. I decided early on that the name for people using Twitter just had to be Twits. Not very original of course but why else would people "tweet" all day. Who cares what you're doing every minute of the day?

However this week I've seen how Twitter has changed one person's life completely, and presumably this huge mass-communication effect will apply to many people and situations, so this is just the tip of the iceberg. Jonathan Ross, who has to my knowledge two weekly TV shows and a Radio show, and probably other stuff of which I'm not aware, is apparently a prolific tweeter. Or Twit. He has, at the time of writing this, 270,379 followers - and for those who know nothing about this, that means people who read his tweets, receive updates etc and are able to follow his every utterance. That's over a quarter of a million people!! For someone like Ross, this has to be very exciting.

But what Ross has done this week is to change someone's life through Twitter. He decided apparently on the spur of the moment (although it has been said on various blogs and newsreports that in fact this was an orchestrated event between him and his sister-in-law Amanda Ross, who runs Cactus TV, which does the Richard and Judy Show, which has just been axed ... follow the drift?) to launch a Twitter book club. Every week he would nominate a new book at the weekend. People would read it during the week. Then on the following Sunday every member of the bookclub could post their review. On Twitter. 140 characters. Sounds like haiku-review to me!

So many of his followers then started to follow his newly formed book club Twitter group (#wossybookclub) and Ross announced the first selection - Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson. Given the 140 character limit on each tweet, this was perhaps not a good title to choose so it's now been abbreviated to MWSAG or simply Goats. The result is that every Waterstones, Borders, independent bookshop and online book retailer in the country including Amazon have sold out of the book. Picador are apparently reprinting frantically and then reprinting again (although once we get to next week's choice will people still want Goats?). An e-book was launched in a big hurry. All the audio books have been snapped up too. Everyone's clamouring for Goats and Jon Ronson must be so very happy. What publicity! What a triumph for him! The book's already been made into a film with George Clooney (again, some aspersions have been cast on Ross's choice given his links with the film industry via his TV programme Film 2009) and this mass-hype can only boost the film too. Free advertising and all from a little 140 character tweet!

Of course there's been much griping and grousing about the fact that someone like Jonathan Ross has such influence over the book-buying public. Many have bitched about him and his lack of literary credentials. I dared to question this attitude in my response to a blog about it on the Bookseller, when I said that surely reading was not the prerogative of an educated, literary elite and anything that encouraged people to read more books was a good thing. I was told emphatically by another blogger that I was wrong, and that books should inform and enlighten rather than entertain. Oh dear. That's me getting it all wrong again then.

All I can say therefore on the topic is - please someone bring Stonewylde to Jonathan Ross's attention! I'm not a literary snob. I'll take the free and massive publicity with gratitude. Given that he has a farm in Dorset and a wife who's interested in paganism, he'd love Stonewylde. Blimey - I'd even arrange a walk-on part for him when the Stonewylde films are made one day! How could Wossy resist a sweetener like that?

Ring out the old, ring in the new!

A belated happy 2009 to everyone! My mother always used to stand on the doorstep at midnight on New Year's Eve and say those words, which are part of a poem by Tennyson. "Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky ..." A very magical way to greet the new year, and a tradition I still keep now she's sadly no longer here.

I hope you all had a very good Yule. We were very busy indeed with so many family members either staying or visiting, but it was lovely. One of my new year's resolutions is to stay in closer touch with more members of my extended family. But I'm afraid this blog is going to be a bit of a "grumpy old woman" one - it's about Christmas trees.

I've always had a real tree for Yule. I'm not sure if this is the "greenest" option (and would welcome comments and advice on this) but to me, one of the whole points of this festival is the idea of bringing evergreens into the house, as our ancestors did. Somehow an artificial tree just doesn't fit in with this concept, however perfect it might be. In fact it's the perfection of artificial trees that puts me off. One of the joys of a real Christmas tree is the fact that it is real - with all the imperfections that brings. Maybe a bit wonky on one side, or slightly bald. Each year it's a gamble whether or not you'll find a beautiful one, or have to tart up a rather dodgy specimen.

But ... the past couple of years I have not been happy at all with our Christmas trees. I don't know if this coincides with my move away from Dorset, and the garden centre where I always bought our tree, to Reading - or whether it's a growing trend. You see, one of the very best and most wonderful things about a real Christmas tree is its glorious SMELL! My children feel the same. I just love coming down in the morning and smelling Christmas tree. It brings back childhood memories and to me encapsulates all that I love about Yule.

But the only trees available (in this area at least) are the dreaded Nordman Fir. These used to be a luxury option (totally out of my league) for people who didn't like hoovering up the needles. I've never minded the pine needles - it's all part of Christmas for me. But now it's impossible to find anywhere in Reading that sells the old-fashioned, scented, needle-dropping type - called Norway Spruce, according to the Forestry Commission's website. You can only buy Nordman Firs, which not only don't smell at all, but also look artificial to me. They're not wonky or bald in places. They're bushy and perfect with needles that don't look right and are completely scentless. And they're horrendously expensive.

Does anyone know about this? Is it just Reading or is this a trend throughout the country? When the last two kids still here after Christmas took the tree down for me on Jan 6th, it only took me a few minutes to hoover up the small smattering of fallen needles. I felt cheated!This job used to take forever and often lasted well into the year as new green prickles would appear like magic around the skirting board and under the sofa cushions. I'd be really interested to hear what others think on this subject. Where have all the Norway Spruces gone?

The photo above was taken by one of my most stalwart Stonewylde fans - a wonderful lady from Cornwall called Cornmother. At least that's what she's called on the Stonewylde forum! She makes beautiful corn-dollies, which I believe I've featured on this blog before. She made the ones above as gifts for various Stonewylde fans when we met up in December at the Dartmouth Festival of Healing Arts. Mr B and I brought two home with us and they graced our tree this year. They're now hanging on our twisted hazel branches along with the permanent fairy lights - yes, it's always December 24th in our house! Some things are just too lovely to keep for Yule alone.

I wish all readers of my blog the brightest of blessings for 2009, and look forward to meeting many of you at the Stonewylde Harvest Moon Gathering in September. If you haven't discovered it yet, do come and visit our new community forum at http://www.stonewylde.net
We launched this new meeting place at Yule and it's brilliant now we're all getting to grips with the complexities of it. More about this in another blog - but do come and visit. And let me know about the Christmas tree issue please!

Creative Writing at Park House School, Newbury

Last week I spent two days at a secondary school in Newbury talking to the whole of Year 10. Just when I though my teaching days were over! I was invited to talk to the eight tutor groups for an hour each, which was a somewhat daunting challenge for me.

Year 10 will be starting their Creative Writing GCSE coursework very soon and it was hoped that as a writer, I'd be able to give the students some tips and maybe inspire them a bit. Mrs Tyrrell the librarian had made a wonderful Stonewylde display outside the library and also made me very welcome. It was so strange going back into a school environment, having been out of teaching for two years. But I soon realised that coming in as a guest was very different to teaching (a great deal easier!) and the hours whizzed past.

The students (14 to 15 year olds) were a lovely bunch and very attentive indeed. I spent an hour with each class, talking about the Stonewylde Series, writing in general, and how everyone has stories and experiences that they can put to good use in their writing. Everyone took part in an activity that demonstrated this - drawing maps of their locality and annotating them with anecdotes - and there were some pretty hair-raising stories that emerged! I read them an extract from my second book, Moondance of Stonewylde, and told them how this had been inspired by an incident from my son's school days. It's amazing when you write how you dredge up real memories and put them to good use, often unconsciously.

I really enjoyed my two days at Park House School, meeting so many youngsters and teachers. I do hope some of what I said will help them in their own writing - and of course that some of them will now read Stonewylde too. Mrs Ellard, the Head of English, confesses to being "stonewylded" herself, and is about to embark on writing a story of her own that emerged when she did the mapping activity! I'm looking forward to reading it, and wish all the students the best of luck with their GCSE coursework.

Stone circles - prehistoric or otherwise

I was interested to read today about a Dorset couple who moved from Weymouth to Dorchester and took a "prehistoric" stone circle with them. My first reaction was "WHAT????"

On reading several versions of the story online (the Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, Sun and also some US and Canadian sites) it transpires this was not the case at all. John and Suky Burton, well-known Dorset pagans - he is a Druid and she a witch - were moving from a large mansion outside Weymouth to a smaller house in Dorchester. In the grounds of their old house was a stone circle, which had apparently been constructed in the early 1900s by Thomas Burberry (of Burberry fame) using thirteen Portland stones. The pagan couple had used the circle for many a ritual, and were intending to leave it for the next owners to enjoy.

But when the property developer buying the house said he intended to break up the circle and dump the stones, John and Suky had to act. They hired a great crane and twelve "burly" men, and moved the thirteen stones to their new home in Dorchester. It so happens that their new place is on a ley line which runs between Maiden Castle and Maumbury Rings, and they positioned and aligned the stones very carefully with this. Apparently they are both delighted with the new energy they can feel around the stones, and there were some lovely photos of them both in robes next to their new circle.

You can imagine the scepticism of some people's comments at these online reports. To be fair, most of the news reports were fairly neutral in their commentary and simply reported the event as it was with no obvious bias. The Sun of course could not resist a little sensationalism, and their headline was "Our crazy pagan couple believe stones give them powers". However, the rest of the article was fairly restrained and even managed to avoid the dreaded Sun-puns. The papers reported that the couple then invited twenty other witches to a night-time ritual to dedicate the stones (wish I'd been there!) and this is what inspired me to blog about this.

I thought - isn't it great that this can now be done openly, and reported in the national (and international) press? It wasn't so long ago that people had to be so secretive about their pagan beliefs, and could never have openly held a ritual such as this. There may well be local backlash towards them of course, but hopefully the majority of people will be tolerant, and leave the couple in peace to follow their own beliefs. There's such a growing interest in paganism; one of the papers quoted that in the 2001 census there were 30,000 pagans. I would imagine this figure will be infinitely higher in the next census as more people come out of the broom closet.

Having been so happy to see how open pagans can now be about their beliefs, I was then saddened at one of the comments posted about the report. A man accused the couple of being "super-market trolley" pagans, and dismissed Suky's claims of being a hereditary witch from her mother and grandmother before her. The man making the comment was clearly, from the other things he said, a pagan himself. It made me sad to see yet more evidence of this awful back-biting and bitching that goes on amongst some people who purport to have the same broad beliefs.

If paganism wants to be acknowledged as a religion or spirituality, then followers need to present a united front to the world. I do understand that there are many different branches and traditions amongst people loosely classified as pagans, and nobody likes to have their beliefs lumped in with others'. But for us to be taken and treated seriously, we do need to show the rest of the world that we are together in promoting a green spirituality, whatever path we've chosen to follow.

I was concerned, when writing Stonewylde, that I may upset some groups with the type of paganism I'd chosen to portray in my story. I thought that maybe I'd get angry letters or e-mails from people saying "This isn't right - we do don't it that way and you've got it all wrong". Thankfully, so far this hasn't happened, and I do know that Stonewylde has been read by a great many pagans. It seems that most people accept that what I've created is just my version and I don't speak for any other groups. It would be lovely if this same tolerance and understanding could be spread across the board.

Incidentally, the news reports I read about John and Suky's stones did make me think - when does a Stone Circle become so sacred and special that it must not be moved? How ancient does it have to be before it gains special status and must be protected? All stones of course are prehistoric (think about it!) but the ones in this news story had only been in place for 100 years or so. Is it the place that makes them special, or are any stones, aligned with intent, sacred in themselves? I'd be interested to know what others think about this.

The photo at the start of this post (I obviously couldn't use the ones in the papers for fear of breaching copyright) was taken back in the summer at a small stone circle called Kit's Coty, near Maidstone in Kent. And unlike the repositioned Portland stones, these had been here for a very long time!