Productivity Leap

Productivity Leap - Published in Writing Magazine - February 2016
Productivity Leap – Published in Writing Magazine – February 2016

 

With an extra 24 hours this month, Simon Whaley chats to three productive writers about making the most of our writing time.

When you’re an employee you get paid at the end of the month. Unfortunately, most employees get paid the same amount of money whether there are 28 days in February, or 29. For self-employed people, things are a little different. A leap year gives us a whole extra day in which to write something and, hopefully, earn more money. But it doesn’t matter whether you write full time, or in your spare time, this February we have all been allocated an extra 24 hours. So how are you going to make the most of yours?

Read more

Curious Cloud

  I called this Curious Clouds, but the more I’ve thought about it the more I realised this is more of a cloud sandwich. The contrast between the narrow band …

Read more

Kite Flying

Squint hard enough and you can just about make out it’s a Red Kite. We don’t often get them soaring in the skies on this side of the main road. …

Read more

Burway Climb

A solitary car climbs The Burway – the single track road that rises from the town centre, onto the high, heather moorland of the Long Mynd. As I watch it …

Read more

Meandering Along The Mortimer Trail

Meandering Along The Mortimer Trail - The Countryman - March 2016
Meandering Along The Mortimer Trail – The Countryman – March 2016

“We need more kangaroos,” the manageress said to her assistant as I stepped into the shop. Puzzled why a card shop in Ludlow would have any need for Antipodean animals, I paid for my postcard and left. I’d read the Mortimer Trail was a good walk for wildlife, but I didn’t think it included large marsupials.

Read more

Along The Welsh Marches

Along The Welsh Marches - The Peoples Friend - 27th February 2016
Along The Welsh Marches – The People’s Friend – 27th February 2016

“Uncle Simon, why is there a goat on top of that castle wall?” My nephew stares at the white adult goat fifteen feet above us. A series of frantic bleats fill the air and, suddenly, three sure-footed kids join their parent on the narrow, stony ridge. “And how did they get up there?”

Read more

Spring Sounds

(Turn the volume up!) Walking into Carding Mill Valley this morning, birdsong filled the air, along with the gentle flowing waters of the stream in the valley bottom. Despite the …

Read more

Blasted Blades

A frosty night, which means every single blade of grass has been blast-chilled with a white frosty coat, which crunches as I compress it underfoot.

Birdseye Ludlow

There are 200 steps to the top of St Laurence’s Church tower, in Ludlow. But the view from the top is worth it.

Clee-covered Cloud

There was a strange cloud stretching all the way from the edge of Ragleth Hill, across Ape Dale and Corve Dale to Brown Clee Hill. It was as if the …

Read more