Hogsmill Tiddlers

Hogsmill Tiddler

At the wooden bridge, beside

the washing-willow,

under frayed dare-devil

rope-swing, we small-fry gather;

splash-paddle in the sun-filled

slipstream, our expectant

jam jars perched ready on banks

for contents of day-glo

Hogsmill Tween

nets on bamboo poles,

skim-dunked, dipped into laughing

sparkle, we seek out elusive

piscine lurkers, shoal-darters,

minnow-school pretty-carpers,

spike-backed silver-bellied

sticklebacks, shimmer and shift

in ever-changing shallow-shadows.

We graft all afternoon, rewarded

by encounters with small wildness,

iridescent scale inspection

Kids at the third bridge, 6 Acre Meadow

through jars held up to the light.

A busy day meeting our fishy friends,

our neighbours of the water;

we send them back before barefoot-flapping,

wet and toasted, up the hill home.

 

Over the Fields poetry map

Hogsmill Tiddlers was originally published as one of the poems on my now sold-out Over the Fields map, back in September 2015. It has since been published in The Countryman magazine and is also used in teaching materials for the Open University’s MA in Creative Writing.

 

 

I have just pinned Hogsmill Tiddlers to another map, showing the location of the poem, on the Places of Poetry web site. This is an AHRC and Arts Council funded project which “aims to use creative writing to prompt reflection on national and cultural identities in England and Wales, celebrating the diversity, heritage

laughing sparke

and personalities of place.”

We still cross the bridge nearly every day on our walks ‘Over the Fields’. Five generations of Furlongs and counting…

Walk the Ancient Droves of Tolworth Court Farm, Sunday 12th August

The Ancient Drove on Tolworth Court Farm Fields

The latest in our series of Tolworth Treasure and the Hogsmill Hum walks is a walk across Tolworth Court Farm Fields, our local nature reserve.

We will meet at the white bridge over the Hogsmill / Bonesgate Stream at 11am and take you on a journey through the ancient fields of Tolworth Court Farm, which date back to Domesday and beyond!

We will walk down the drovers’ road, and stop for a while to enjoy this beautiful space. If you would like to bring a poem or story to share about Tolworth or to celebrate the summer and the first harvest please do!

Accompanied children are welcome to this family-friendly walk.
Parents are responsible for supervising children throughout the walk and we recommend you bring water / sunscreen / a hat in case the weather is still scorching hot!

Please be aware that as we are hoping to show you as much wildlife as possible we can’t allow dogs on the walk.

Come and discover this gem of Tolworth Treasure
And it is FREE!

Trains: Tolworth Station and walk (approx 10 mins) 406 bus from Surbiton / Kingston / Epsom etc…bus stop nearby

Disclaimer: walks undertaken at participants’ own risk & responsibility. Please contact re. accessibility / mobility.

More info and contact via www.facebook.com/tolworthtreasure or email words@lucyfurlong.com / alison.fure@blueyonder.co.uk

#SourcePark Hastings

A week staying in a tiny cottage in Hastings Old Town took on a new significance for my scooter-obsessed son when we discovered, on our second day here, that a 20 minute walk along the promenade would take us to The Source Park – the world’s largest underground skatepark.

The Source building was originally the White Rock swimming baths, including a Turkish bath and individual baths back in Victorian times. Its popularity waxed and waned, and over the years the building was modified and became an ice rink and a cinema. Eventually it closed and was derelict for several years.

The skatepark opened in 2016, after gaining funding in 2014, and the White Rock baths underwent a massive overhaul in being fitted out as a skatepark. But what is fascinating about the building now, apart from it being a great place for all ages of scooter / BMX / skateboarder to go and ride, is that in transforming it, many of the original features of the pool have been kept, and are wonderful to see.

This would seem a fitting tribute not only to the original architects and designers of the White Rock pool, but also to the original development of skateboarding, and its anarchic roots in the riding of backyard swimming pools back in the 1970s, as shown in the seminal documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, about the pioneering Zephyr team, whose skateboarding started as an extension of surfing.

As the mum of an enthusiastic 10 year old boy scooterer (is that a word?), I am pleased to have somewhere cool to take him, which is also a pleasure for me to spend time in, has a great cafe, and as a writer about place, is not too smoothed over. It feels honest. The music is great too!

 

 

 

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Mapping Memories, Over the Fields, on the Isle of Wight

Over the Fields poetry map

I am currently preparing for a talk I will be giving this Thursday, 22nd June at Quay Arts, the Isle of Wight’s leading art gallery and venue for live events.  I was thrilled to be invited to speak about my poetry map, Over the Fields, as part of the events and activities taking place around Richard Long’s show, The Isle of Wight as Six Walks, 8th April – 1st July.

Photograph by Bill Mudge

I will be talking about how and why I came to make the map. Regular readers of my (somewhat irregular) blog will know that this was a process of going for walks with my Dad and my son, over 18 months, beginning in January 2014, and ending in August 2015. The map was self-published after being beautifully designed by my best mate, and printed and folded into a pocket-sized A6 fold out full colour working map, with poems on one side and photos and map on the other.

Since then the map and I have been on quite a journey, and I have been able to achieve some of the aims I had for it, and other things have happened which were unexpected but equally wonderful.

Running Through Six Acre Meadow

I will talk about this tiny piece of greenbelt, and the impact it continues to have on my family. I hope you can join me for a walk through the poems and a chance to think about memory, family and place. And walking itself, and why it continues to inspire creativity.

Information and booking here.

Facebook event here.

Thursday 22nd June, 7.30pm – 9.00pm £7

Quay Arts, 15 Sea Street, Newport Harbour, Isle of Wight PO30 5BD

 

 

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Today

Unusually for us, we have done glorious ‘nothing’ today, a bit of tidying up, read 50 pages of a book, played on the X Box, watched Minecraft  Youtube videos on the tablet, trampolined, walked to Marks and Spencers to buy bread, talked about swearing, blaspheming and the etymology of the word ‘crap’, cooked roast chicken, listened to all the carnival-related programmes on BBC 6 Music, had a dance off to Original Nuttah and Brown Paper Bag – “*THIS* is drum and bass” -snuggled up and watched Streetdance and ended up robot dancing…

laughed, counted our blessings, me and my son.

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Over the Fields in The Countryman magazine

 

The Countryman magazine

extract from Hogsmill Tiddlers

Over the Fields poetry map

The original Hogsmill Tiddlers

I am delighted to report that Over the Fields, my new poetry map, was featured in the February edition of The Countryman magazine, as part of the Editor’s Diary: “…a fascinating ‘poetry map’, Over the Fields, containing evocative poems and prose fragments, which can also be read in situ, allowing people to read and respond to the poems…”

Alongside the feature they have published a poem from the map, Hogsmill Tiddlers.

If you would like a map click here.

 

Lurgy, Climate Change and Hobbitses

Over the Fields walk, January 2016

 

Last Sunday me, my son and my dad went for our first proper walk Over the Fields this year. We have all been poorly and the weather has been rubbish but I was desperate to get out and have a walk over there in time for Imbolc/ Candlemas. This is the traditional time of year for sighting the first snowdrops, and maybe to see buds and Blackthorn blossom. With such a mild Winter there was plenty of new green shoots to see, trees in full blossomy bloom, new nettles and dock leaves, hawthorn leaves unfurling… I wrote about the walk for local ecologist Alison Fure’s excellent blog, and you can read what I wrote here.

On Monday afternoon I finally gave up battling with the lurgy I’ve had on and off since mid-December, and went to bed. I’ve been there ever since, apart from a trip to the doctor on Friday. Eye infection, throat infection, chest virus, acute exacerbation of asthma…I’ve been fighting it for ages but finally it got the better of me. This has resulted in a week of cancelled teaching. Not great when you are a self-employed single parent… but…mustn’t grumble eh… my son is being looked after by my amazing dad, and I am safe and warm, if feeling particularly grim.

The silver lining is that being stuck in bed means I have watched a few films. Most affecting of these is This Changes Everything, narrated by Naomi Klein and based on her book of the same name. I need to watch it again and I would recommend that you need to watch it too. So should everyone. It is tough to watch in places but breathtakingly filmed and well put together. A mixture of environmental disaster and tragedy, and the heartening, brave protests of people on the front line, whose land and lives are being profoundly affected by the atrocities of fossil fuel companies and big business. The message is clear and simple. Capitalism vs the Climate- if we don’t fight it we are doomed. Now I need to read the book.

I also watched all of the Hobbit film trilogy- and been for the most part pleasantly surprised; I saw and enjoyed the first one at the flicks, missed the second and third, and was put off watching them by a couple of friends who said the story was poorly handled, there was far too much emphasis on spiders, and that the book had been done a total disservice by the drawing out of the plot to nearly 9 hours of film…I loved the LOTR films but was, like many people, rather surprised and slightly cynical at the announcement that the Hobbit would be made as a three-part series of prequels.

So…slightly late to the party…I watched the final two parts this week. Yes, the story is drawn out but I think it’s ok, if a bit baggy . I find the use of CGI action scenes which look like computer games (and *are* constructed for the computer games market- I know, the biggest part of the film business these days) distracting and annoying- formulaic and jammed into the action of the films- but, otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of the Five Armies- and I would happily watch them again.

After watching This Changes Everything, The Hobbit trilogy of films became a metaphor for the rampaging greed of capitalism destroying nature, Power Over instead of Power With.

I am also re-reading Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking- a fascinating, wonderful read and, as this year I am especially committed to developing my walking/writing/making practice, a necessary one too. Once again, in light of what Klein says at the start of This Changes Everything, about the idea promulgated during the Enlightenment, of Nature as something to be conquered and used for ‘our’ benefit- the history of walking ties in, in some ways, with this view of what Nature is and is not…thought-provoking stuff and I will be returning to it again and again no doubt.

Walking into 2016

sunset at Avebury, December 28th 2015

I haven’t been blogging much recently- in fact hardly at all. 2015 turned into a crazy, exciting, busy year, creatively. As a result, I found at the end of the year that I had dropped some important threads, including my blog. I hope to pick up where I left off and carry on knitting this strangely-shaped patchwork blanket of random writings on a much more regular basis. Call it a New Year’s Resolution if you like, maybe it is one – my blog has been a writing rudder in the past, steering me through events, successes, failures, moods, frustrations and obsessions…and I hope it will do that again.

Lots of great stuff happened last year – I feel very grateful and fortunate to have met and worked with some lovely, talented and generous people, and to have achieved some of my ambitions for my writing. I will write more about this but I don’t know if that will happen here and now…it might happen randomly and at will, rather than any attempt to be chronological and consistent and comprehensive…

It was good to go away at Christmas and New Year and take a much-needed breather and see some new places and friendly faces.

hide and seek at the stones, Avebury

We traveled to stay in a tiny cottage on the edge of a farm in Wiltshire, where I hoovered up Viv Albertine’s memoir in a couple of days; wandered around Avebury re-acquainting myself with its stones and trees, after eating lunch in the Red Lion; found a tiny magical part of Calne; stayed in a very rainy Bath and re-visited the Roman Baths and Sally Lunn’s – amazing lavender cake with rose buttercream filling!

Then we were very lucky to be invited to stay with one of oldest friends and her partner and sons in Cardiff, where we saw the New Year in hearing socialist anthems sang exquisitely by members of Cardiff Reds Choir, who happen to live two doors down from my friend’s house, and who were having a party, which we were then invited to. The next two days were filled with trips to the funfair and Dr Who Experience, home-made curry and apple pie…a great way to see the New Year in – best one I’ve had in years. Thanks for everything, Tania XXX

 

 

Carshalton-On-Sea Festival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This has all come together rather quickly, and impressively, and I am delighted to be so involved. The main event for me and my other poetical colleagues, Sarah Dawson, Neil Horabin and David Russamano, is the Water Poets at 1pm in the Cryer Theatre, Saturday 20th June. There will be tonnes of other excellent stuff to see and do over the weekend!

Over The Fields Poetry Map: It’s Coming…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new poetry map I have been working on for the last 18 months is on its way to being published…there are still final bits and bobs of writing to do, photos to select and final edits but the art work is taking shape. I am very excited about this as it is highly personal – a map of Furlong territory, especially my Dad’s, and his brothers’ and sisters’ – their ‘second home.’ It continues to amaze me, how much this small piece of land contains in terms of stories, nature and deep history. I cannot possibly cram all the writing and poems, pictures and information I have gathered and created, and am continuing to amass on to two sides of A2 map…maybe this will become something else in the future…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More news and updates on this as it continues to materialise into something tangible. For now, the photos above are of where I lay the other afternoon, listening to many different birds singing, bees buzzing, watching fronds and flowers swaying in the breeze… a ten minute walk from the white noise of the A3 in one direction, and the train to Waterloo in the other.

This is the sound of the suburbs.