The proposed plan to build houses on our beautiful green belt land

This is the comment I made on the Kent Messenger, I wanted to put it up on my blog as well for more people to see. The plan is to build seven hundred low income housing near Culverstone. So here it is:

I am very dismayed by these developments. Why can't Gravesham council leave what is working and good well alone? The schools are excellent here, the streets are safe, there is only a little speeding traffic and that tends to be from persons who are not local and are just using the Wrotham Road as a cut through from the M20 to the A2. The woods are safe for women and children to walk in, the roads are safe for women to walk alone down. We can see the stars at night because we have beautiful trees and fields and very few street lamps and in most places none at all. This area is a haven. If more housing is created in this area they will destroy beautiful areas of greenbelt land, surely this contravenes the 'supposed' green environmental policies?
Low income housing means what? For whom? At the very least more people means, and particularly a huge influx will destroy village life, destroy schools that are currently not overcrowded or full of problems (can you leave your childrens bikes outside the school fence in your towns? We can at the minute). It will also mean more traffic on the road, an increased risk of speading and therefore dangerous to children, walking pedestrians (of which there are many currently)and to our many wildlife inhabitants like foxes, squirrels, rabbits, badgers. The amount of roadkill will increase phenominally for animals. These are only some of the possible problems.
Why doesn't the council in its regeneration programme of Gravesend 'regenerate' all the old houses that are empty and boarded up and put well made houses to good use and leave our dwindling greenbelt alone.

Tree Surveying in Trosley woods

Yesterday was able to spend an hour and half looking at trees in Trosley Country Park - I will say Trosley woods in most of my blogs from now on. Anyway, I couldn't find a couple of the trees that I had found on my walks with the dogs to no avail. They definitely move you know! Anyway, there was one that had been pollarded at waist height which I measured and another Hornbeam that had a second growing into the main trunk which looked interesting. Neither of them measured beyond the expected circumference which is disappointing but still interesting trees so I have photographed them as below.

Also there is a pond. It is not a naturally occuring pond. However, it has run dry recently which is apparently unusual. According to the lady telling me the story this is the first time it has been dry in the five years she has known about it. It is apparently known locally as the 'witches' pond; thankfully not as a place where countless wise women and old women and just women because they were women, were drowned in the puritanical, christian, patriarchal, mania that continued right up until the 1700's. I digress. The pond is apparently very good for scrying.

Here is a picture of the remains of an old Oak tree that sits on the edge of the pond. Sadly, there is no water in the pond just lots of logs. However, look at the second picture, it has been taken by me at an angle, do you think that could be a dragon? Or a horse? Maybe its just my eye?

I wonder if the pond drying is an omen? Could it be part of the woods response to the council's continued war against the trees. Every where I walk, they seem to have cut down more trees - as part of tree management - of course! Yesterday there were even men at work signs in the wood - what is going on?

I just love Trosley woods, what a fabulous place.

A Year in the life of me!

This may sound a very self absorbed title and I cannot promise to write as a diary every day but I want to monitor certain behaviours. So to give a bit of background: I am going back to work full time for the first time in five years and am more than a little nervous. Not about the work itself but because of all the other things I do, I don't quite know how I will juggle it all. Anyway, it is a must for my self esteem as well as my registration and money.

I have been writing and reading prolifically up until we moved and with all the stress and then the muddle I haven't done any. I have restarted acting in Happy as a Sandbag which is great. I haven't done any acting or performing of any kind since Christopher died. I have also just completed a archery course which I love. I haven't been able to go to the club yet because of rehearsals and I really miss it. I hope to get to the club next Tuesday. I also go to circle for mediumship but again I haven't been able to go for several weeks. I am also a tree surveyor only recently and I am a druid with an insatiable thirst for more and more information about brythonic languages, mythology, saxon and celtic history and much more. I also do, as a druid, shamanic work, herbal preparations and I grow and harvest my herbs, as well as doing healing. I also have an allotment which I also love. I miss doing creative stuff and I need to finish sorting out my study so that I can paint and write again. I also want to use my singing voice more. Sound manic? Thats without all the usual demands of life including dogs, cats and the house etc. My poor long suffering partner must despair of me! Anyway, I will be monitoring how I manage my time with it all. One great thing is that I don't watch television except neighbours so I probably have more hours in the evening than others. I hope this will not read too boringly when I get going!

More Beautiful Fungi

Beautiful Fungi

Here are some pictures from my walk in Trosley Woods.

Creations

Have begun a stall at a craft fayre in Vigo, Kent. This is usually on the third Saturday of the month. Here are some of my creations!

New writing I'm working on!

Cover of Magic Study (Study, Book 2)

I haven't blogged for a while, haven't really got a handle on balancing everything I do yet! I seem to go in fits and spurts on one thing and then on something else. I am however, doing well with my new peice of writing. I am writing it as a novel. I am typing it straight onto the computer which is a new thing for me and it seems to be working. The flow seems to be coming naturally like it does in longhand so that is good. I have resisted all rereading or tweeking at this point. I feel, I just need to get it done.I can edit and re-edit, and re-edit again thereafter!
I have implemented a three hour goal per week for my writing. This means that whatever happens, I have a minimum baseline that is achievable on a weekly basis. It also means that I can spend more time on my novel writing if I am able. This is working for me which is great. This is particularly good as I am starting to allot time to work on poems and short stories for competitions and possible submissions. These are separate from my novel writing so I am hoping to carve specific time slots for this as well.

I also want to work on my poetry more, which includes reading more poetry. I am amazed at the wealth of poetry out there! I am sending off my subscribtion for MsLexia at the end of the month!It is packed with brilliant information, supports women writers and is a great help to new writers like myself!


I have always from it impossible to carve out art time. I find the only way I can do this is to go with the flow when it comes upon me. When I have an urge to paint, it usually lasts for about a couple of days or sometimes even a week. If I am unable to do anything with it because of other deadlines or work it dissipates into the thin air that it came from. I have tried on many occasions to force myself to paint or draw or create something when these urges are not present but it comes out second rate or even worse, like I can't even draw at all! If however, I go with the flow and let myself run with an artistic flow it can last upto the painting of one picture, or the creating of one thing or it might go on and on so that I can produce several items/creations/paintings in one long inspirational period. When it dries up, it is very strange, like the door closes, I do pine for it but no matter what I do it doesn't open. I have found this to have gotten far worse in the past 4 years. It disappeared nearly entirely for a period of three years! This was the longest time I have ever had in my life without any ability to produce something artistic. It was very strange too and I grieved it as if it would never return. I thought perhaps I had burnout and yet some of what I was working on spiritually should have actually produced more inspiration. However, this year it has begun to return, it is frustratingly slow and only lasts for a couple of days or a week at most. Still it is returning which I am really glad about.

I am reading Storm Glass by Maria V. Snyder at the minute.

I loved her trilogy about Yelena, Poison Study, Magic Study and Fire study. I am also re-reading The Celtic Shaman by John Matthews.

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I also read The Fly by Kathrine Mansfield yesterday. It would be great to write a short story so brilliantly!