Rebecca Ritson

I HAVE BEEN EATING…

WORDS:

This wistful Duffy poem addresses our addictive obsessive relationship with being ‘mobile’…and what happens when our mobility is shot down or ignored. Many of my words have been fewer than 170 characters in the last few weeks so it seemed apt:

Text

I tend the mobile now

like an injured bird.

We text, text, text

our significant words.

I re-readyour first,

your second, your third,

look for your small xx,

feeling absurd.

The codes we send

arrive with a broken chord.

I try to picture your hands,

their image is blurred.

Nothing my thumbs press

will ever be heard.

Carol Ann Duffy

FOOD:

Unable to quit last week’s scone fetish, I relapsed by baking wholemeal flour scones last night. Convinced they are healthier, I ate three. Gym session today has left room for more…so before they are (s)gone here’s a picture:

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WE TEXT TEXT TEXT OUR SIGNIFICANT WORDS

I HAVE BEEN EATING…

WORDS:

This wistful Duffy poem addresses our addictive obsessive relationship with being ‘mobile’…and what happens when our mobility is shot down or ignored. Many of my words have been fewer than 170 characters in the last few weeks so it seemed apt:

Text

I tend the mobile now

like an injured bird.

We text, text, text

our significant words.

I re-readyour first,

your second, your third,

look for your small xx,

feeling absurd.

The codes we send

arrive with a broken chord.

I try to picture your hands,

their image is blurred.

Nothing my thumbs press

will ever be heard.

Carol Ann Duffy

FOOD:

Unable to quit last week’s scone fetish, I relapsed by baking wholemeal flour scones last night. Convinced they are healthier, I ate three. Gym session today has left room for more…so before they are (s)gone here’s a picture:

The fastest cake in the West

FINDING EDEN

THIS WEEKEND I ATE THE EDEN PROJECT…

What do you get if you cross a writer [waves, enthusiastically], a friend and her child with a day at the Eden project?

Too. Many. Clichés. It’s a fertile environment for [rips up note pad]. Great oaks growing out of small acorns [ deletedeletedelete]. Sewing the seeds of creativity [stomps out of room, slamming door].

Putting it simply, the day was great. Because:

a. it’s cold out but toasty in those biomes and at this time of year I kinda dig a bit of frizzy hair

b.it’s £5 for locals

c. everyday there’s storytelling

[Dusting off, then getting on, soap-box] This is one of the lost arts of our culture. I love that Eden celebrates it , finds it space to cozy up to and uses words to gather folk on a daily basis.

Nestled in the Med biome the teller corrals her audience. The acorns peg it about – but hey – it’s warm and their young bones call for action. The adults form a wobbly circle, on walls, the floor (toasty) and, thus positioned, lasso their offspring ready to hear. At first I fear a riot as a there are ramps for jumping, trees for pulling (and that’s just the adults, old bones finally getting the message), however within a heart-beat little faces are enthralled. As am I.

There are tales for telling.

The stories are old and comforting – like the biome they form a warm blanket around the group. The teller is engaging, interactive and we become the chorus to her verse.

Those who think Eden is something for adults, the hip session crowd, the hyper conscious sustainability eco warrior are right. But it’s also a space for the unassuming; the family; the child. Eden is a safe, warm space that values words as well as action; silence and echoes as well as shouts and screams and encourages growth in more than one direction [DRAT it…]

You can buy your ticket before Feb 10th and have until October  to validate. [Giving in..] fertilise your family’s imagination this week at Eden: http://www.edenproject.com/buy-tickets/local-pass

THE NIGHT ABOVE THE DINGLE STARRY

SEDUCTIVE SALES

I have been seduced. A warm, earthy breeze billows and calms, billows and calms. Cicada’s chirrups cease and thus, an arch moon rises. Clouds career across the velvetine sky, alternately shadowing the stars and revealing them. In this magic half -ight twinkling, the grapes are picked.

It’s an averagely priced Sauvignon on offer at Saino’s – but they got me. The grapes have been harvested in the cool of the night. So I sup a rural idyll, not the sponsors of the recently departed Friends.

Any viniculturists…does night-time picking really make a difference?

WHO’S INSPIRED?

 

Everyone's a poet, searching for a rhyme. Those who record the search are called writers.

EVIDENCE OF SCONE SCOFFING!

My home-made scone and Rodda - HEAVEN!

WHAT NOURISHES YOU?

Of course, food does. Hi fellow human!

But, perhaps you’re reading this because, like me, you don’t just eat food, you eat words. They nourish your mind and soul in the same way as food does your body.

Maybe your midnight snack is not (only!) a furtive trip to the fridge but a head-torch under the duvet with the giveaway

klick     klick

of your kindle. 

If so…this blog is for you.

BLOG INGREDIENTS

In whatever form you get your five a day – prose, poetry, a word that makes your tongue smile – consider my blog an alphabet soup aperitif with which to start your day.

I aim to present you with some poetry, books, and literary events in Cornwall alongside more fundamental nourishment – foodie delights in the county. Serving up reviews, recipes, restaurants and folk who make our taste-buds party from Padstow to Penzance.

Each week you get FOOD and WORDS to snaffle – get your napkins ready…

THIS WEEKEND I ATE…

FOOD:

Home-made scones. Ok, I know.  January, in the rain, is not a typical time for a scone scoffing session. But huddled on the couch around the only radiator (oil, I live on a wind-blasted plinth) those scones awakened a part of me long dormant. Rodda’s clotted cream transcends seasonality. And I swear after the fourth, I saw a little daffy poke his head up out of the hardened earth, dust himself down, and say: “Come on February, I’m bloomin’ ready!”

I echo Mr Daffodil’s sentiment – this is the last grizzly Monday in this bleak month. Bring on the scones!

 

WORDS:

Penelope – Simon Armitage

your man is long gone, and I have loitered

by your garden gate; weeded the border,

turned the soil over, waited on your word.

There is a quilt or sheet or counterpane

strug out across a tenterframe; by day

you make it, sitting in the window seat.

And you have crossed your heart and hoped

to die, promised that this cover, blanket,

bedspread, when completed will envelop me

with you.

Penelope, one night last June

I came for fruit, and from the crow’s nest

of the cherry tree I made you out:

unhitching one day’s stitching, teasing knot

from thread, releasing warp from weft…

I dropped down from the tree and left.

That’s fine. you’re buying time, holding your breath,

watching, waiting for your man to show.

I’m in the garden picking you a rose:

this new strain with their frantic, crimson heads,

open now and at their very best having dozed

all winter in a deep, rich bed, the trench

I sank one evening but the potting shed.

I mark the best bloom, take it at the neck.

copyright Simon Armitage

EAT YOUR WORDS

Fed up?

Get ready to stuff yourself with similes; gorge on golden prose and chow down on cheeky haikus.

Discussing all things tasty in the world of food and words from a rocky outcrop on the Cornish coast, this blog will nourish both body and soul.

Tasty!