The Picador Prize

We are pleased to see Helen Mort's been shortlisted for the Picador Prize. The results aren't out till January, so she'll have to contain herself for a bit.

You can get all the details here:

http://www.picador.com/poetryprize2010/

It's been a good year for Helen, what with being the Wordsworth Poet in Residence as well, and getting to live in the Lake District, where currently, as the pic she sent us this week shows, it is a bit wintry.



Not that different from the view from my window in London recently, just fewer houses and higher hills. But the amount of snow was the same...

We are hoping to drop in on Helen en route to Glasgow this weekend, weather permitting. She was also saying she might be having some more permanent company - in the form of a dog. Looks like it's going to be a whippet - appropriate for a runner.

So will A Pint for the Ghost be followed by The Hair of the Dog? Perhaps it would be a natural progression, especially if the whippet's done a bit of wraithing....

Don's Official Website

Having been so used to seeing the "under construction" welcome on his website I've been a bit tardy in realising it was up and running and so not posting the links here. Anyway, just mark his handsome coupon on the right with a click and be transported... or click on this link


The other new item is, of course, his book on Shakespeare's sonnets. But don't bother to click on it here: the link doesn't work.

The image was borrowed from Amazon, where, of course you can buy all of Don's books if you haven't got them already.

You won't be able to buy any of his CDs, although, given the amount of material on his website, you hardly need to.

Congratulations to Judy

Good news to hear Judy Brown is the winner of the Manchester Poetry Prize 2010.

http://www.manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk/poetry/winners.php

I'd love to be able to say she has offered to give us a few bob to tide us over these crisis-ridden times, but, no.

Though I shall be giving her a call....

It´s Hail, Mary...

Extreme weather is not that unusual here.
Last winter brought the floods, and this summer has been really hot with temperatures in the 40s. The swimming pool did good business....

This week has been ridiculously windy, with all sorts of stuff flying around the village. But worst of all happened last month.

In the middle of August, with high temperatures, a freak combination of conditions led to a really heavy build up of clouds.


Even the swimming pool closed early having been given warning of what was to come. It got darker and darker, then the thunder and lightning started, followed by hailstones. We were in the car, having just parked outside the house, and the noise inside was ear-splitting, as though army of drummers were banging on the roof. We had left windows open in the house, so I had to make a dash for the door and even in that short distance I got soaked and whacked by lumps of ice the size of grapes. I dashed upstairs and closed the shutters, then went up to the roof terrace. The cotton sunshade was almost touching the table underneath, so full of hailstones it was. It took half a dozen pushes to gradually empty it out onto the roof. I reckoned there was maybe 10 buckets-full of ice. One load landed on the terrace, so I took a pic.

Then, of course, a village load of ice melted and the streets were flooded instantaneously, though thankfully only for a few minutes.

I've never seen anything like it - ever.

The weather does give us some great images though. Like this pic of the church with the storm clouds behind.

Helen Mort - Wordsworth Poet in Residence

Belated congratulations to Helen on getting herself a new job. Swapping the flats of Cambridge for the fells of Cumbria.





And a rather nice little pad (B&B possibilities there, I should think...)






She´s mentioned that she´s been doing a fair bit of swimming in the cold, cold water of Grasmere, wandering the fells and catching the sun glinting on water... cue for a poem, I'd say:

Helen´s on the up and up

with honours she´s been garnished,

but she went for a swim

in a mountain lake

now her reputation´s

tarn-ished...

No excuses now for not having space to write.

Check out her page on the Wordsworth Trust site.

http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/information/index.asp?pageid=53

Martin Gil

The big adventure of the Spring was undoubtedly the climbing of Martin Gil. From the village there is one mountain that takes the eye - a nice cliched pyramid shape - and which dominates the view. Interestingly, I know a chap in Cortes (from where the mountain can't be seen) who didn't know which one it was... we are so parochial here. Even the accents change from village to village.

On the only day forecast not to be rainy, we climbed up from Cortes in the morning, via the track to the Llanos de Libar, on the other side of the ridge, then cut across and climbed up onto the peak.











The views were stunning. Jimera was tiny.



We could see south to the Rock of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean, and over to the Rif mountains in Morocco.















One of the surprises was the number of flowers so high up, especially some tiny wild narcissi growing among the rocks.















We had lunch watching the vultures beneath us, scrambled about on the rocks (at least I did) then headed down along the ridge towards Cortes, eventually getting back to the house at 8.45, just as it was getting dark.









And was I sore the next day?.......

Spring Flowers

With all the rain over the winter, the valley is looking very green, and the flowers were especially good in April.













The usual suspects made their appearance, such as irises, broom and poppies,
and we saw some bee orchids.

















Martin Gil, on the other side of the valley, was starting to look inviting...

Springs in Spring

The water for the village comes from a spring (nacimiento or manantial) on the other side of the river.



Due to the limestone nature of the rocks, there are many springs which appear suddenly from the mountainside, and the one which supplies the village is known las Artezuelas, which probably derives from a word meaning small troughs, as there is a series of bowls down which the stream flows.

With all the rain over the winter, there is plenty of water, some of which is piped off and pumped up to the water treatment plant above the village. Cortes de la Frontera also gets its water from las Artezuelas.
















Benaojan, the next village has a much bigger nacimiento, a regular river emerging from the rocks. It is amazing how much water appears from weird places after a lot of rain.

And, of course there is the Rio Guaduares which flows under the mountain and comes out, or this year rather bursts out, at the Cueva del Gato, where, beneath the waterfall, is the mountain pool where hardy souls can swim.

Jimera Floods

The heavy rain which lasted for days and days, together with high winds, caused all sorts of damage around the village. This pic was taken from the bridge looking towards the station.











There were landslides, with the road to Atajate closed, and severe rockfalls on the roads to Cortes and Benaojan.










But worst of all, was the flooding in the Station Barrio, all along the river.

In this pic the car is actually floating.....

A number of cars were washed downriver.

At its maximum, should you have been standing in this street, the water would have been over head height!


These pics taken by Karl Smallman. There are more pics at his website, Secretandalucia.com.