Midwinter Medley

The Midwinter Poetry Cafe was a particularly pleasant one with a great atmosphere and some terrific poems, from open mic readers as well as from our guests local wordsmiths Rick Rycroft and Muriel Lavender, and Karen Woollard & Jill Flanders from the Warminster Poetry People. Rick is a poet 'in love with the ordinary', creating lucent imagery from slugs and half-remembered dream phrase. Muriel showed her impressive versatility as a performer by following her entertaining cautionary santa-saga with some stunning haiku, including several so orally beautiful the full-house audience seemed stunned... Helen Moore read her account of an activist protest entitled #iceclimblive, now published in a collection of 'ambitious poems by women poets' entitled Her Wings Of Glass. And if you'd like to be a founding member of group of serious poets to meet monthly and focus on the craft of editing your work, contact Norman Andrews for full details. Sounds a great idea to me.
It's always good news when Three Corners has a new album, and to launch Singular the band gave a full performance of all ten gorgeous tracks at the Masonic, with a chance to dance during and after.
What more could anyone want? Maybe a portion of  Dexter's Extra Breakfast ~ and we had that as well.



A brilliant Roots Session at the Grain Bar on Wednesday, with Griff Daniels & Nicki Maskell plus guests including velvet-voiced Steve Loudoun, songs ranging from 1950s pop through folk-rock and reggae to soulful blues.  Saturday morning streets jingled to the splendid sounds of Honk Monster, with Pete Gage finishing of a mega-musical week at the Cornerhouse, atmospheric lighting great for dancing but not photo-friendly.

Fromesbury Writers takes our end-of-year meeting seriously, in terms of festivity, and as an additional reason to be merry, Debby Holt has just got a new book deal, so prosecco was essential ~ thanks Jill Miller for donating in absentia, we're toasting you in Spain and wishing you rich writing as well as sunshine.  Frome Writers Collective had their get-together in Divas, and I'll end back at the Cheese&Grain with an art-&-craft market featuring local practitioners: lively images of Frome streets from Fourmakers, quirky pendants by Pukka Jewels (love the vintage camera one) and amazing products from foraged berries & herbs by Wild Things"  ~ that's Kylie and Lauren-Olivia, who developed their business from scratch (or possibly from snatch) through the Edventure apprentice scheme. Who needs Lord Sugar? or any kind of sugar ~ their rosehip chocolate is sweetened entirely with honey.  As BBC Points West so nicely put it in their plug for our local shops "The chaos of Black Friday seems a world away from the streets of Frome.