To thank you for your ongoing support this year, I come bearing gifts. A Winter bouquet, a (sad) Winter Solstice short story, a new edition of my song A Prayer for Avalon with a video of Avalon landscape photography.

It’s has now come time for me to hibernate, but I have penciled in an Imbolc and Equinox tree walk for Spring, so we’ve all got something to look forward to. I am so grateful for your ongoing support this year and every year.

Wishing you all the finest festive period and a great start to 2025.

A Prayer For Avalon

Over the last few weeks, I have been working with Jenny and William on the release of this new version of A Prayer For Avalon, a song I first wrote and recorded in 2018.

Over the last 6 years, the song has been played countless times to locals and to people visiting Glastonbury from all over the country and from all corners of the world. It’s been sung in churches and halls, performed in fields, on hills, in cemeteries, palaces and abbeys, beneath trees, around fires, and in the pouring rain!

I have made it tradition to sing the song to Grandmother Lime on every tree walk I lead, encouraging walkers to join in on the chorus, and take the tune back with them to their part of the world. The song has provoked peace, joy, laughter, and tears, opened hearts and encouraged emotions. It seems to have become something of a Glastonbury anthem, and for that I am inexplicably grateful.

The accompanying video includes my own photos of the Avalon landscape taken over the last few years, as well as some photos of me singing on tree walks, and stood within the scenery.

Thanks to everyone who has enjoyed this tune, it’s been a pleasure to play it to such open and attentive ears over the years. A special thanks to Jenny Bliss for your amazing string fingers, and to William Kraemer for your keen ear, it’s a pleasure to collaborate with you both.

 

 

A Winter Solstice Short Story

At Midwinter of 2019, my Grandad, Ron, died suddenly and unexpectedly. He was visiting my Nan in her care house, as he did at least twice daily, and was struck by a car as he walked home, he died on the scene.

The following day, having received this painful news, I came out to leave a festive offering for him beneath this tree, a very old and special hawthorn that lies to the northeast of the isle. The tree is ancient for a thorn,  draped in jewels of mistletoe, and has lived in this spot with an elder for decades, as the last remaining part of an ancient hedgerow.

It was the darkest of Mid-winter afternoons, the sun had barely left the horizon before it started its descent. The fields were sticky with mud and the sky deeply clouded. Everything felt very heavy.

As I stood before the thorn with my offering; a mince pie, a tangerine, and a walking stick, in hand, all around was silent and not a soul was in sight. I slowly approached the tree, setting my feet gently into the surrounding mud and muttering utterances of sorrow, gratitude and peace.

Placing the offering with care at the base of this giant thorn, barely was I half upstanding, when a bouncing orange spaniel leapt through my legs and, without hesitation, devoured the mince pie in one mouthful before shooting off like a bright spark into the half dark.

A part of me attempted to stop the dog, but as I reached forward, I slipped and was left with one hand and one knee in the mud as I watched the happy hound bound off into the distance, with no humans in sight.

As I got my bearings I began processing this strange occurrence. Was this a signal that my offering had been accepted? Or was I being prodded by the fae folk that were surely protecting this lone thorn? Or, did I not adequately appease the old crone who cares over elder? I would never truly know, but I felt most at home with the feeling that my offering had been devoured in eager acceptance by this wayward springer.

A couple of minutes later came the whistling and calling of two humans walking towards me from the other direction, in search of their missing dog.

“He went that way, with my mince pie”, I said, as they stood confused, half laughing and half apologising to the bedraggled, muddy, man, before trudging off in pursuit of their dog.

This week, as is my tradition on the anniversary of Ron’s death, I revisited the tree to find it half lost to recent high winds. I cried.

Like me on that fateful Solstice afternoon, this noble thorn now stands one hand and one knee planted in the mud. It struck me that, five years since Ron’s passing, I have only just come to realise the full tragedy and heartbreak of my Grandfathers passing.

Here’s to Ron, and all of my recent ancestors.

x

 

 

 

 

UPCOMING TREE WALKS:

Sat 1st Feb – 11am – 12.30pm
Sat 22nd March – 11am – 12.30pm