Orchid time of year

This is the time of year when the multitude of orchids on various windowsills in my house begin to flower like mad things. Here are are the kitchen orchids.

I don't know if it's the warmer environment, or the change of light - but I welcome it with great joy, whatever the cause. They are amazing.

I love their uncompromisingly stiff and glossy leaves, weird aerial roots, and long flower stems that need support but droop away from it to make their own shapes.

They are remarkably easy to keep. A light windowsill with little or no direct sunlight, some humidity ( a kitchen windowsill or a windowsill in or near the bathroom is good too), a little water, and regular misting. The results are fantastic.

When the flowers have fallen from the flower stem, don't cut it down until it has actually died and gone brown. Very often the next flower spike will grow from one of the nodes on this stem, so cutting it down means you have no possibility for flowers. And don't put your orchid in a ceramic or decorative pot.  Orchids like light on their roots, so keep them in clear plastic pots and enjoy the strange roots that drape over the edge of the pot, and sometimes turn into a flower spike.

When I am wealthy ( ha! as if being a poet is ever going to make that happen!) I am going to have a house with  massive North facing windows in the kitchen and the bathroom, and open shelves across them with row upon row of orchids, silhouetted against the light, and flowering like mad things.

A story in eleven tweets!

A rather different writing project, creating a story to be published in a series of tweets!
I was asked to work with an after school book group of children in Barry Library. The group aged 7 to 9 years and part of the Chatterbooks project, meet regularly to discuss stories they have read, but this time they were going to be authors.

I started by giving them an 'author' pencil, and I had made grids with 140 spaces to match the characters of a tweet, with the hashtags we needed added in as well.

The story had to be created in an hour, and the individual tweets had to be interesting in their own right as well as making a narrative. I admit that I had no clear idea how it was going to work! But we started in fine style and it was a noisy session with mad ideas flying around and lots of laughter.

Some library staff sat in on the session, and posed for a photo afterwards, looking rather like the usual suspects.

And then the story typed and tweeted!

I've just realised it doesn't have a title! But you can find it on the twitter feed of Vale of Glamorgan libraries, @voglibraries, with the hashtags #cbxweek and #lovelibraries or you can read it right here. You will see that, although I did guide the shape of the story, the content is pure 7 to 9 year old imagination, and I love the ending which is really asking for the sequel to be written. Enjoy!

Here is a haunted house story, with cow shaped slippers and spider skin swords Brace yourselves!

I opened the secret book and eight wriggling legs reached out and dragged me into the pages and then...

I found myself in a dark and gloomy haunted house. Six red eyes were staring at me, and then...

out of the shadows stepped a three-headed girl. I am Triple she muttered. I need your help. Its cold in here and...

I need three hats without me going into the dark cold weather, because if I go outside I will vanish into thin air.

I stepped outside. The hatshop was guarded by ghost guards with spider skin swords. I felt in my pockets, finding...

some bubblegum. Step aside I said, or I will blow a huge bubble & stick your swords together - forever! The knights replied

Bubblegum is our worst enemy, we will step aside. Enter the hat shop and buy your hats in safety.  Farewell. And so...

after buying three woolly stripy spotty luminous hats, I returned to the dark & gloomy haunted house to Triple, saying

Here are your stripy spotty luminous hats. Now can I go home for tea? Its chocolate fajitas, I don't want to miss them.

She said Before you go back, could you buy my spider eight woolly slippers shaped like cows - they must be size 4!