Flatpack community

Frome - as you probably know if you follow this blog - is famous for its independent council: visitors arrive literally from across the planet to interrogate the IiF (Independents for Frome) about how the town became engaged with the concept of local autonomy. Founding father Peter Macfadyen wrote a book about it - Flatpack Democracy - and the reason I'm talking about it now is because I've realised there's a huge connection between Frome and Skyros Holistic Holidays on the Greek island of Skyros. There too, they do things differently. There, as in Frome, there's a commitment to creating a sense of community. Frome has the structure of a town council whereas Atsitsa is a hut-village on the west coast of the island, home to temporary communities. Daytime activities include windsurfing, abseiling, yoga, singing, art, writing - which is why I go there (here's my fantastic morning group) - and impro drama, with evening activities like starry walks, dancing, pub quiz, and on the final night a glorious cabaret. It's all a mix of esoteric, creative, and plain wild. Food is terrific, accommodation isn't, and participants - often from high-powered jobs unused to latrine ablutions - come year after year, loving the ethos every time as each group creates its own identity: a precious community in which every individual is cared for and valued. Like Frome, Atsitsa's creates its community identity by attention to diverse individual needs and a lot of meetings. There's morning demos daily for the whole group, then œkos (small group sharing) and paired co-listening to go deeper... and there's interest group meetings which all come together on the last night in a cabaret so glorious you can hardly believe that five days ago these people were still trying to remember each others' names.
To illustrate that lovely Appollinaire quote, here's lovely Lilla who believe-it-or-not had never before danced suspended from a pine tree in a silk sling...
"Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, we're afraid!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, We will fall!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.
But if our happy band sounds more like 1950s Butlins than a Greek idyll, there are in fact many options  to evade cabin-fever. You can walk down the pine road to Cook Nara where there's ambient music and wifi at the taverna and exquisite soft sand, shallow turquoise sea and loungers...and you can walk right across the island to the old town where tiny white houses - to hide from pirates - pile like sugar-lumps behind the massive rock. There you'll find cobbled streets so old and narrow that even the local taxis stop below the Plateia in the centre, music bars & shops staying open till late - that's because they take the longest siesta in the world and only reopen around 7pm - and the long sandy 'town beach'. Near the top of the rock, overlooking the cerulean-and-golden glamour of the bay, is the most amazing museum I've ever visited: the Manos Faltaits Museum has an extraordinary range of treasures and its gentle-voiced curator, who is also called Manos, can tell you fascinating facts about anything that takes your interest because he knows every item.  Here's pictures of our first glimpse of the town from the 9 mile walk, and Manos with some of the art works. (Thanks for the me-pix, Berny)

And now I'm home but still waking on the island, my mind finding it hard to grasp there will be no dash to yoga, no lavish breakfast on the trestle tables under the bougainvillea, no morning meetings...  no local wine at 2€ a brimming glass, no singing on the terrace and no more sunsets spilling across the Aegean sea...
But Frome has a way of re-asserting itself, as evidenced by a large sticker on the post at the corner of my road when I arrived :-)
And from another Greek island - Skiathos - a picture of Vicki Burke's holiday reading... (Thanks Mark Brookes!) I've had really great feedback on Frome Unzipped, and came home to this particularly lovely email from Bob Ashford, ex-Mayor & now Chair of Fair Frome: ...Absolutely brilliant. So much I had forgotten about and so much more I have remembered. Written with warmth, humour and passion and found myself smiling throughout. Genuinely the best account of Frome I have read and does justice to all those over the years who have made this such a great place to live. Good on you!
Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it... 

Postcard from Skyros

Regular readers will know that this primarily-Frome-focussed arts blog goes off, geographically speaking, annually to an island in the Aegean where Greek heroes hid, where Cretan pirates roamed, where the quintessentially English Rupert Brooke has his grave, and where now Skyros Holistic Holidays offers creative 'alternative' activities both in the main town and on the wild west coast, at Atsitsa Bay.
That's where I am at this moment, in a beach bar with wifi and exquisite soft-sandy beach and warm azure water, to which I shall shortly adjourn. I'm now midway between two sessions: here's last week's supergroup, posed in dappled light which unfortunately makes them look as though they're mid-way being beamed up to another planet, and my other awesome group, the 'Sunset Writers'... and here's our sunset view as we wrote. We did other things too: there's a wide range of options throughout day and evening - including aerial dance - and the food here is fantastic, all created by superchef Taki. And now these amazing groups have both gone, and new people have arrived, for another week of mornings immersed in creativity and afternoons immersed in water...

Avid Frome-followers keen to catch up on culture-goss, therefore, will find this post disappointing - I can tell you nothing about the Fat Boy Slim gig at  Cheese & Grain, which I would have give my eye-teeth to be at if I knew what these dentures are - though in compensation, here last week we had ecstatic dance, bopping in the bar, and a late-night hut-rave. And singing in the cabaret, and harmonising on the beach... The only home news I can add is that legendary music producer & singer/songwriter Ethan Jones shared his songs in the unlikely venue of Sagebury Cheese Deli the night before I left (next-door Raves from the Grave is so cram full of recordings in every format there's no room for a guitar to be unstrapped, never mind played to a rapt audience) and he was terrific. Leonardo's Bicycle at Three Swans afterwards gave us a fun tour through the 60s in song, and after that I know nothing.... I console myself with the extraordinary beauty of this island, the amazing people who come to Atsitsa, and the awesome, entertaining, sensational, & sometimes magical experiences it provides.

from the edge of the ocean

Frome how big you are! How full of roads & cars & houses, and how overwhelming damp & colourless... apparently there's been an Indian summer here last week but I've returned from Atsitsa on Skyros island into the season of mists and a 10 degree drop in temperature.
No blazing cerulean skies here, no strobe-bright dazzle on an indigo sea, no stark dark pine-tree shadows. No nightly views of the sky glittering pink and the ocean silvering as a big red sun drops like a blob of ketchup below the horizon, no more red moon rising above Juicy Bar beach on a warm evening, with mojitos. No more mealtime bell announcing trays of banquet-luscious food arriving, no more extreme (Irish) yoga, or demos group appreciations, or oikos groups and, big on this miss-list, no more marvellous shared words from the writing group.

My  awesome octet met each morning in Adonis taverna on the beach to drink greek coffee and write, and each morning they astounded me, and sometimes themselves, with memories & inventions, feelings & observations, stories & poems.... meanwhile the fishermen mended their nets & drank grappa and the local ladies gossiped & laughed loudly and the sea methodically slapped the white pebbles and the sun shone. Miss that? Just a bit. That's litotes - understatement to emphasise an affirmative. And this is flow, which is only allowed ten minutes (Ted Hughes says so too) so I must stop. Normal service will be resumed next post.  In the meantime in the words of physicist Carlo Rovelli, which I read aloud in the warm full-moon darkness beside a bay on the island after our starry starry night walk, Here on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world. And it's breathtaking.

Bohemian rhapsody in the Aegean

Regular followers will remember I've been regularly visiting Skyros and returning all aglow since this blog arrived blinking into cyberspace in 2006. Recently I decided to step back from leading courses, much as I've always loved my groups, to focus on new directions but the magic island called me back in the most exciting way ~ with camera in hand, to proxy-enjoy all the creative, spiritual, and physical activities of Atistsa bay. Here the friendliest group imaginable included me in their daily life from Qi Gong on the pale beach in early morning to singing at dusk, with dancing at night under the full moon. (Thanks Mark Gunston, film-maker & windsurfer extraordinaire, for the image)

Atsitsa is on the remote, neo-hippy, West coast where pine forests creep down to the pale pebbled bays and the sun sets vermillion on the wine-dark sea: for a more essentially Greek vibe you need to cross the island to the Skyros town where life on the cobbled streets seems hardly to have changed since Achilles' days, though down on the sandy shore nymph-wear is scanty and beachbar music is ambient chill-out. I came back with a full memory, both personal & technical, of dazzlingly beautiful moments ~ over 100 posted on my facbook page ~ feeling rich in connections and reconnections.

Amazingly, Frome was also enjoying 30+° heatwave when I got back, which must have been tough for the Frome Half Marathon. Mayor Toby Eliot and Deputy Al O'Kane participated and happily our 2016 Festival Poet Laureate, John Christopher Wood has decided to take his role seriously and to honour the occasion. Here's The Uses of Mayor Ware, which features not only audacious rhyme but a really neat final couplet. Enjoy!

The Mayor is doing a 10K run. He’s doing it for charity. 
It’s to try to raise some money, And to make it feel more funny 
He’s doing the whole thing In full mayoral bling, 
Which for charity hilarity has no parity. 
A chain of office weighs a ton; Running in it’s not much fun. 
So to schlep around a whole 10K Is a feat extremely schleppity. 
But he’s not doing it all alone - He’s running it with his deputy. 
 Councillors like these are good for Frome; It’s party politics that wrecks it. 
These feisty Independents are A much more positive Frexit. 
And it’s a turnaround beyond compare, Politically it’s rather stunning 
 First to be running for Mayor, And now to be Mayor for running.

Next week Annabelle and I are heading for Shropshire with our Time Walk, to 'walk through nearly five billion years tracking the story of our home planet, marvelling at the way everything on earth has evolved from stardust' in the lovely location of Carding Mill Valley.  I've been reading David Eagleman's fascinating insights into the intricacies of the human mind Incognito, finding even more to marvel at, and still more summer ahead!

I'll end with a look back at the magic island from two of my favourite places: the headland of Atsitsa bay, and Plateia Rupert Brooke at the top of Skyros town, perfect to watch the southern rocks turn slowly from grey to lilac as the sun sets...

Bus and boat and bus and boat and bus and plane and bus and plane and bus....

Athens Sofitel lounge is usually a midway pause on the homeward journey from Skyros island, the double-ferry, triple-bus trip behind me and only the flight to London and onward train or bus journey southwestwards to go. This time I'm poised for another outward flight as soon as I get back to the UK as, for logistical reasons I won't bore you with, this is the only way I can get to Malaga in time for my next writing course. So in order to arrive fully focussed at the gorgeous venue of Cortijo Romero, I'm checking in with my final posting on the fabulous Atsitsa Bay venue en route, while Greek memories and mosquito bites are both still vivid. 

So many high spots, like the nine mile walk to Skyros town with its labyrinth of narrow cobbled lanes with its authentic local nightlife in the bars & tavernas and long beach below the jutting crag covered with sugar-lump buildings, a sickle of sand stretching from the gaudy little harbour right round to Dimitri’s ouzo bar where you can watch the southern rocks darken into violet at dusk. About midway is Juicy Bar, 14 years ago when I first came here the only beach bar with loungers and reed parasols and still a favourite place for mellow music and smoothies and shade. 

Back at the camp the tempo changes again as like Prospero’s isle Atisitsa is full of strange noises: massive drumrolls of thunder & battering downpours that seep into our bamboo huts and turn the red earth paths into muddy moats, and later the swooshing of floods swept from the Magic Circle for Kym Suttle's unmissably fantastic early morning yoga. And there’s music everywhere, Susie’s choir, the ad-hoc guitar-&-keyboard band, Kym’s dance music, discos in the bar and songs around the site. Saturday night resonated to the chords of Richard Wagner at the Greek premiere of Julian Doyle’s movie Twilight of the Gods, an examination of the composer’s quarrel with his erstwhile friend Frederick Nietzsche which lasted until his death, after which the philosopher went “brilliantly and ferociously mad” to quote one of his last utterances before becoming catatonic. 
A week of fascinating evening activities, great food, and a daily saunter down to "20-minute Taverna" for an afternoon swim on the sandy beach there, but for me the main event was the morning and twilight writing workshops held under the pine trees of Marianna's cliff top bar: mutually supportive writers sharing some stunning pieces of work, a real privilege to know you all. 

Atsitsa... where time beats a different drum

The weekend starts Thursday lunchtime for Skyros courses in Atsitsa so with no evening group tonight I hiked along the coast road to twenty-minute Taverna (misnamed unless you have wheels btw) where below the massive pine tree in the 'Cocktail Bar' there's wifi as well as solid sunshine. It's been quite a week. Since the 2-day journey to arrive here I've led eight workshops with thirteen writers sharing pieces moving, amusing, surprising & delightful, all of them at Marianna's cafe, a venue of almost unsurpassable beauty and constant inspiration.
I was going to say more, about evenings of dancing, a starry walk to the chapel for a melos (impromptu sharing of poetry and song), watching geckos darting through the pine-shadows, fantastic yoga sessions, bamboo huts, camaraderie, and breakfasts, but signal at this charming beach bar is fragile so I'll leave all that till tomorrow, when we walk nine miles across the island to Skyros town. 

Rain, rudeness, and hasty packing.

There's a scene in Hay Fever which epitomizes the arrogant ill-manners of the ironically named Bliss family as they compel their four bewildered house guests to play a game of  'In the manner of ' after supper. (Incidentally Felicity Kendal's Judith Bliss offering a flower in a winsome manner was the highlight of the show.) Dysfunctional behaviour dressed up as bohemianism is as close to a storyline as you get from this script, revived by Theatre Royal Bath as a vehicle for Ms Kendal who is simply fantastic as in the central role ~ the rest of the cast, while probably good actors in other roles, couldn't do much to lift this farce about awkward pauses and rudeness which Noel Coward apparently wrote to lampoon some of his acquaintances. "I did the whole thing in three days and I didn't even rewrite" he claimed. A pity he didn't take a few more days and seek a dramaturge: someone with the succinct wit of Oscar Wilde or the good-humour of PG Wodehouse might have helped him create character and story to enhance the ridicule. But the two-tier set is great and so is the lighting and the deluging rain that traps them in a huis clos situation.  Director Lindsay Posner.

No more reports on the southwest scene  for three weeks now as I'm away, heading first to the magical island of Skyros to lead a writing group for two weeks. Here's an eagle's eye view of the little town because I love it so much, but I'll be staying in the bamboo hut camp on the far side ~ with fabulous sunsets but limited internet access. Compensations include sunshine, great meals, meeting old friends and making new ones, yoga, singing and dance, and my final week will be spent in another inspirational environment working with writers: Cortijo Romero in Spain is also without wifi but with added benefits, including gorgeous gardens and a pool, so I guess I'll cope...

"Your dreams are potent fields of creativity, understanding, and wisdom."
Esmé Ellis has finished her new book Dreaming Worlds Awake, an intriguing patchwork of reflections about the elusive but palpable connections between our conscious and unconscious worlds. We use the term 'dream' both for imaginings in sleep and conscious aspirations, and Esmé explores these interactions in a fascinatingly personal way. I'm delighted my poem Jacob and the Angel is included among her fragments of synchronicity.

Back in Frome, The Lamb is no more! Well not with that name anyway: Martin Earley, charismatic host and owner of the pub where Nevertheless Pub Theatre began, has changed the name to The Cornerhouse with a cool new look to match. Launch night with the Zoe Francis Trio playing Gershwin to Frome's glamorati gave a foretaste of sophistications ahead.

Back to Bath again for something very different: 24 Hour Plays at the Ustinov. "24 hours ago", project director Shane Morgan reminds us after the cast have taken their final bows at 10 pm tonight, "not a word of this production existed. In the last 24 hours, 6 plays have been written, learned, rehearsed, and performed." It's an amazing and wholly admirable achievement, and though the writing was understandably variable, the acting by each team of five was superb. The same props - a venetian blind and a suitcase - featured in each play, as did the notion of wind, and there were thematic synchronicities too: motherhood, both surrogate and abandoning, with the end of the world threatened twice. My favourite was Maria by David Lane, both for strongly developed characterisation and pacey direction: all characters on stage from the start allowed Sam Berger to avoid the dozen or so blackouts that fragmented the opening play Tiny Little Lost. Chris Loveless also did well to create a sense of cohesion with his slightly Am-Drammish comedy material Exit Only. And despite any personal nit-pickings, overall this event was an absolute triumph: two hours of engrossing dramatic entertainment, whipped up by six inventive writers and a cast of thirty talented actors. Bouquets all round.

And as we freeze in bitter winds, I see Skyros island is set for another week of 22 degree sunshine... roll on June 11th, when I'll be in Atsitsa Bay, watching the water, smelling the oleander, tasting the retsina, feeling the warmth, listening and talking about writing to anyone who wants to hear and share.