Here comes another year, just like the other year...

Bruce Munro's distinctive 'Field of Light' art installation has come to Frome! Well, to Marston Park, actually, the popular glamping site just a 30 minutes walk from Frome, past the threatened southern fields which - if we can't hold back development plans - will all become Frome anyway soon. Anyway, at present there's no residential light contamination around the beautiful big lake, one side of which is adorned for what seemed like (but probably isn't) about a mile of luminous spider-web adorned with thousands of bubbles, flowing in colour from blue to green to pink, purple, and gold. It was a mild night, and the free invitation to locals included a complementary drink (my pick was a negroni, for a touch of scarlet beside the lake) - a sensational enhancement of that tricky last day of the old year.

This 'tricky bit' has been more tricky than usual this year, with parties cancelled and continuing anxiety over every aspect of the news, now the dreaded 'big C' no longer means an overly-commercial event but an international plague. For me the unexpected option of a Boxing Day walk brilliantly illuminated this tween-time week, literally in fact as sunshine reddened the beech-leaf carpet of Roddenbury Hillfort, turning the hilltop into a stage-show of dramatic shadows. I've posted before about this amazing place, just on the edge of Longleat forest, where the contours of Iron Age settlement fortifications are still decipherable as you walk through the lofty trees, without foliage transformed into splendid columns. (Regular readers may notice this data also appears in last week's post: that's because it was a Sunday walk & therefore on the posting-cusp, plus this edition is a bit thin on items, what with the 'tween' lull & covid cancellations.)*

New Year's Eve brought a lovely non-crammed party with friends, chats & fizz - thanks Tracey for the selfie, with hostess Rosie Eliot. Social media has been awash with shared good wishes and positive images, and our Town Council site has posted - here - a wonderful round-up of last year in snaps of successful projects, celebrations, and policies in action.

Rodden Nature Reserve, on the Eastern edge of Frome, is an amazing wetland space which isn't always open to visitors, as the many wild species, some quite rare, need privacy in their breeding seasons. It needs stout boots, but lingering there always brings rewards of birdsong & tranquility, and photographs. My visit this Sunday gave more: a close encounter with an otter! About ten feet in front of me, standing in shallow water, staring at me. I stood still, not daring to raise my camera, and after a few seconds he darted through the rushes to deeper water, the ripples to showing he was swiftly away. A memorable start to 2022.

Also a good omen, a live music gig: Pete Gage, Frome's favourite keyboard/vocal star, was featured guest at the Southgate Inn in Devizes when John Amor's R&B trio (Innes Sibun, Jerry Soffe, and Tom Gilkes) played on Sunday afternoon. In the depth of winter, an afternoon gig feels very much like a late night session, and this one had all the energy of a party-night - with Ruzz Guitar joining in with a rocking number.

The more persistent of my readers will recall that the first blog of each new year generally begins with Brendan Kennelly's wonderful poem Begin Again, but for this year's reflection here is some poignant simplicity from Ezra Pound:

    'And the days are not full enough

    And the nights are not full enough

    And life slips by like a field mouse

Not shaking the grass.'

*You might also notice the font on this post is bigger than usual:comments on this, as in better/worse, will be appreciated - you can do this by clicking the 'comments' link at the end of the blog.

Winter dramas, walks, and a rapid retrospective

Once again the high season for family theatre has been spiked by anxiety about indoor gatherings, for all but our political leaders anyway, so a production of Hansel & Gretel in Bristol couldn't be more timely.  'Stories you know in places you don't' is this company's tagline, and for most of us, Arnos Vale Cemetery is certainly an unusual venue to stage a fairytale. At night - we arrived when this woodland gravesite was already in darkness - this extensive garden cemetery is quite something: Inspired by Parisian cemeteries and aiming to emulate Greek architecture, this extraordinary park for the dead was opened at the start of Victoria's reign and is now filled with a gravestones, towering pillars, and massive monuments like a ghost city - the perfect place for one of Grimm's terrible tales of unhappy children and wicked witches...  

Insane Root's version, taking small groups at a time on an hour's tour of both the tale and the woodland, had a wonderful energy that was accessible but still lyrical and fantastic: the journey through dark paths led separately by both children (we were in Hansel's group, he was brilliant) was the unforgettable highlight of a magical show. We were asked not to take photos, so these are downloaded, they don't convey the magic. Book by January 1st, it's like nothing else you'll see this year.

With online productions the only other theatrical option in times of plague, those clever Sharp Teeth people came up with another solve-it-at-home murder mystery: Sherlock Holmes III - Murder at the Games. It's a fully audience-participation created drama, with the script created by our detecting interrogations as inspired by plot prompts and steered by six artistically presented 'case files' which some of the audience in my 'discussion room' had clearly studied shrewdly. Personally I was just in awe of their slick expertise in people skills as well as dramatic intrigue. The final reveal is satisfyingly in line with classic whodunnit plotting & immorality, and the eight performers are all delightfully kitsch.  Joinable until 8 January - great fun.

So the big 3 days have trundled by, and I hope they were good for you: here's my favourite picture from today - sunny Roddenbury Hill on a family Boxing Day walk.

This beech-covered hillside is extraordinary in that it dramatically shows the contours of its history as an Iron-age fort, with several of the protective banks clearly in residual evidence. It's also just a beautiful place to roam in all seasons.

So as this is my official End Of Year post, even though we're not yet at the official start of 2022, here's some wind-up moments and personal awards. With Zoom-widened audiences, it's been a great year for performance of both drama and poetry, with impressive online initiatives early in the year as well as great live shows later on. My top pick of the former is Wardrobe's The Great Gatsby, for the latter,  in a hot contest it's Wuthering Heights, bursting onto Bristol Old Vic's stage in November. 

 Also in terms of live performance, massive credit to Martin Dimery and the team for a triumphant return of Frome Festival with a programme brimming with glittering highlights - especially the music sessions organised by Dave Smith, and the performances on the Merlin's ECOS amphitheatre: The Tempest from Folksy Theatre was my favourite, after - of course - the Poetry Cafe, an amazing finale to my 21 years of promoting spoken word in Frome, though this won't cause the finale of that genre. The HOT Poets  initiative has recently produced some impressive ecological poems, and the return of live bands to local venues brought special joy: Bar Lotte deserves a special mention for fabulous Wednesday night jazz sessions, but the Raggedy Men - post-punk punks - at The Sun in November stand out as unforgettable.

There have been several superb exhibitions of art, craft, and photography in Frome: September's display of responses to the pandemic curated by Active & In Touch was inspiring but my personal pick has to be David Moss at the Silk Mill, because this gave me the cover picture for my August publication of Deja Lu. with Hobnob Press. And credit goes also to writer Claire Reddaway who kept our spirits up with her Kilter Theatre collaboration of readings in Storyopathy, which encouraged me to compile this collection.   

This year was the first time for me in over 25 years with no trip abroad (these were mostly working trips, btw, leading writing courses) - but an away-weekend to Wales in May was a highlight - here's the impressive Dolgoch Falls, highlight of a camping trip to Tywyn. 

So after a quick flip through some of the highlights that illuminated my 2021 like that wonderful lantern parade in Frome, here's with a memory of that night: created by Frome people under guidance of Frome artists with support from Frome Town Council and our internationally-famous punk Mayor Andy...  I hope your own reflections on the year we're leaving have been - mostly - happy too.