I was excited to hear about Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang, as I’ve long been a fan of Kirsty Stonell Walker’s brilliant website, The Kissed Mouth. I was even happier when the publishers kindly sent me a review copy. The book includes 50 profiles of the oft-ignored women of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, beautifully illustrated by both the […]
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Folklore Thursday is a wonderful weekly opportunity to immerse yourself in stories on Twitter. Each week has a different theme and, with Halloween approaching, this week’s theme is ghosts. Certain plants have long been associated with ghosts. Agrimony can help ward off evil spirits, as can basil (the latter being rather easier to source, if […]
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I heard about Art Matters long before it came out, and was eagerly anticipating it from that point. I love Neil Gaiman’s words and Chris Riddell’s illustrations: combining the two seemed a recipe for wonder. When the book finally appeared through my letterbox (for a very reasonable £9.99, given it was a signed hardback first […]
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The Lost Words came out earlier this year, with the aim of spreading nature magic after words including acorn, conker and heron were removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary, as they were falling from modern use. Jackie Morris and Robert McFarlane decided to do something about this, and help children see the magic of nature that […]
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Late summer is a wonderful time to have fun for free. The weather is generally mild enough to explore outdoors in relative comfort, and nature has provided a glut of free food and crafting supplies. Try one of these this weekend. Go Blackberrying Blackberrying is an easy gateway to ore advanced foraging. It’s easy […]
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I was lucky enough to be invited to Latitude Festival to take part in the art. I came up with the idea of Stone Circles because rock painting is fun, simple and currently seems to be growing in popularity. There’s more information about the Stone Circles on the Forest of Thoughts website, but there were […]
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I’ve always loved forget-me-nots. I can’t remember when I first heard their bittersweet name but their tiny blue flowers – and occasional pink or purple variation – always stand out in a cluster of ‘weeds’. The folklore behind forget-me-nots is unsurprisingly poignant. Once worn to represent fidelity when separated from a partner, one myth says […]
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