Poet; lecturer; Victorianist; singer; Scottish dancer; nature lover; wine or tea, that is the question; the sea, the sea; land of the mountain & the flood.

Oxford
Joined August 2014
Hello poets! Thought I was going to break my promise today as I pursued a path to a dead end yesterday, but I changed poets (!!) & this has just arrived. Phew! See what you think. Looking forward to catching up with you all over a cuppa ☕️💜@TopTweetTuesday @MatthewMCSmith
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Please don't leave Halloween pumpkins to rot in your garden, or dump them in the countryside. Eating pumpkins can make hedgehogs, birds and other animals poorly. Instead, dispose of pumpkins in a covered compost bin or council food waste bin. More: littlegreenspace.org.uk/feat…
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A haunting radio feature about the contradictions, passions and paintings of the artist Gwen John, told with great sympathy by the poet Gwyneth Lewis. Highly recommended!
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Alice Stainer retweeted
I love everything about the @BadLilies model: the rose-y setting; the skilful arrangement of circa 15 blooms per issue, all deftly hand-tied (spot the ingenious links between poems!)-- a tour-de-force of floristry craft on the part of super-editors @KathrynGray & @neilsonandrew🙏
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Whoooa, look at this! 😮😍
National Museums Scotland announced it had acquired a rare, 8thC, gold sword pommel #OTD in 2022. A detectorist found it at Blair Drummond, Stirling, in 2019. Encrusted with garnets, it has eyes and a beak on each end. 📸National Museums Scotland
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Aww, Delia. What a woman. I owe my mince pie prowess to her! And indeed quite a few of my other catering bangers 😍 I bought her Complete Cookery Course with a school prize ready for going to university & was the envy of my undergrad colleagues on Saturday nights 😂
Very special conversation with a very special human. Our interview with @DeliaOnline - Episode 2 of The Amol Rajan Connection - is out now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music. Thanks for your time. 🙏🏾
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Alice Stainer retweeted
Just overheard a tiny little girl on the street saying the weather is getting “puddlier and puddlier” and that’s the new word for this year.
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Timeline cleanse:
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a baby with no teeth, no job, and no idea who Barbara Ann is absolutely losing their mind to “Ba ba ba, ba Barbara Ann!” by The Beach Boys! 😂🎶
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If you have enjoyed my new book Culture Vultures (and many of you have told me you have), I should be immensely grateful if you could leave a positive review on Amazon. These really help the author. Thank you! 🙏
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Just had a lovely email from someone who told me they sent a poem of mine to her brother & he now carries it around in his pocket 😍Always pleasing when your poetry reaches out its timid tendril into the wider world.
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Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated 250,000 trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone, the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre theguardian.com/environment/…
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Really so moving how elephants want to share their babies with the people who helped them. This is such a new little one! She doesn't quite know what to do with herself, bless her 😍
It’s a girl! Ex-orphan Chyulu has just arrived at our Ithumba stockades with a surprise in tow – a beautiful, brand-new baby girl. We’ve named her Chili. This is a big moment for Chyulu, and for all of us have been part of her story from the very beginning. We rescued this special orphan 20 years ago, then spent the next decade nurturing her into the confident, competent elephant she is today. Chili is Chyulu’s third calf – and while she is raising all her babies as wild elephants, she has introduced her human family to each one. We look forward to seeing little Chili blossom under the excellent guidance of her mum, just like big siblings Cheka and Charli. Discover Chyulu’s story: sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/o…
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When I lived in Louisiana I’d always see these little ducks with black bellies flying around making a whistling noise. I asked this guy what kind of duck they were and he was like “Oh those are black-bellied whistling ducks”
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😆 I mean, this is how I first watched Blackadder Goes Forth. Final episode, in GSCE History at the end of term. Wow, it hit hard.
Do you remember when the most exciting day at school was when the telly on a trolley was wheeled in?
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The anticipation would definitely liven up a Teams meeting 😆
I accidentally said “Let’s take this outside” instead of “Let’s take this offline” during a Teams meeting today. Now I’m pretty sure I have to fight everyone in the parking lot at 4pm.
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Alice Stainer retweeted
the time it takes to open merlin is coincidentally the exact amount of time it takes for a bird to stop making noise
the time it takes to open your phone camera is coincidentally the exact amount of time it takes for your dog to stop doing a funny pose
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How to cheer a rainy day packed with teaching: take a bus on which the lovely Scouse driver sings 'Here comes the rain' to the tune of the sunny Beatles song & says to me, 'See ya kid' as I get off 😍🌧️🌞
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As a father, I cannot imagine the pain and distress.... Jeanette Keane was at the nearby grammar school when word started to spread something had happened at the junior school and children had died. She went running home but her parents weren't there, with her dad digging, looking for survivors. "He found my sister Edwina and she was alive but he couldn't get her out because the roof would have fallen in," she said. "My father laid by her side, held her hand and she suffocated." #Aberfan60
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Who was the Minster of State for Social Care during Covid? Helen Whately. Anyone surprised by the damning report?
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I wasn't going to do this, but now I'm in marking avoidance mode, so...😂 1.Nancy Blackett (Swallows & Amazons series) 2.Betsey Trotwood (David Copperfield) 3. Sherlock Holmes (Erm, self-explanatory!)
3 of my favourite characters in literature, off the top of my head: 1. Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) 2. Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice) 3. Huck Finn (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
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