Dear friends, my book is now out. It's the true tale of my friend Ed and I going for a walk and coming home as almost-famous singers, on an accidental quest to a land of unreasonable kindness and unsuspected freedom. I hope you enjoy the story.

May the day be bright and strong for pilgrims everywhere…

Nylon ribbons do not a clootie make. The origin of the tradition of tying ribbons on holy trees, was basic sympathetic magic: the cloth is taken from over an injured body part, and as this cloth degrades and falls, so might the injury mend. The same with wishes: as the cloth breaks down, the wish might be granted. So binding wounds and wishes into a fabric that will never (in a lifetime) break down, is a tupsle-teery version of the tradition. The wounds will last forever, and the wishes remain perpetually ungranted. If you have to leave detritus at a holy place, don’t let it be plastic! Please! Biodegradable materials are the tradition, never ever nylon. Thanks!

@badgerlyminge Thank you. I shall be walking through East Kent again in Spring…

@badgerlyminge I have shifted this way for a while. Far from the old Elham Valley indeed…

Goodness me but is there a hint of light in the darkness…?

Does anyone else see the ending of #Glastonbury town #Christmas tree and think of Abbot Richard #Whiting?

Today is Old Christmas - a reminder of Britain’s 1752 swap from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. For a long time, people lamented this change, believing the date of Christmas was now held in error. The Glastonbury Holy Thorn was seen as one of the vital timekeepers by which accuracy on such matters could be guaranteed. Well, I offer news from the hills and hedgerows of Glastonbury. Christmas has been going since mid-November, and is also yet to arrive. But the simple botanical miracle of these ‘Biflora’ Hawthorns is more than enough, regardless of dates, politics and ascribed meanings. So let’s enjoy the simple truth of a Hawthorn that wants to flower in winter, offering us sweet visions of Spring to come… Happy O C to us all!

@rharvey0523 Indeed! Who can say? No other high status stuff found there, but perhaps a King passed through? It was repaired many times, this bowl, and is 2000+ yrs old. It’s a lovely bowl. I’m interested in the procession of dots on the outside. Surely this indicates some meaning/purpose?

Every year, the children of St John’s Glastonbury cut a spray of the winter-flowering Holy Thorn tree from St John’s churchyard, to send to the reigning monarch for their Christmas dining table. A special sealed package is sent directly from St James’ Palace, and the Holy Thorn flowers form part of King Charles’ Christmas breakfast table.

The Unreasonable Rediscovery of the Foddington Stone - a hexagonal healing stone arisen from the dark depths of Earth and water… Glastonbury’s latest miracle?

Some moments of a Glastonbury Winter Concert…

The Holy Thorn on Wearyall Hill in Glastonbury is still in flower! A thrice-flowering hawthorn miracle!

A Glastonbury Miracle! The holy thorn on Wearyall Hill has flowered a third time this year. Once at Christmas (the standard miracle of ‘biflora’ hawthorns), once in May (with all its Crataegus friends), and now again on Joseph of Arimathea’s feast day, on the one year anniversary of its having been replanted on Wearyall Hill. The last great holy thorn here was cut down by vandals in 2010, and the lack of a thorn on this hill has been a wound to the town ever since. But the thorn here is now one year in place, and thriving beyond any other in town. A new genus: Triflora? People of Glastonbury, England and beyond: Be glad!

@TobyGuise @TheSun A terrible place to coldharbour.

An ode written for Joan Wytte, a Cornish ‘Peller’ (Wise Woman) buried in the woods of Boscastle. Joan, born in 1775, who was known as a ‘witch’ and a notorious fighter, whose turbulent life was cut short by imprisonment. As well as her life, her rest was stolen from her by aristocratic fraudsters who used her skeleton for fake fortune-telling. Until the bones wondrously became animated and beat her captors terribly, after which Joan’s body was boxed and forgotten. A hundred years later, the custodians of the Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft and Magic bought her skeleton, and exhibited it. Until they realised they were perpetuating the abuse of this woman, and so they had her buried in the peace of Boscastle’s Valency Valley, by the flowing holy well of St Materiana’s church (just beyond the boundaries). The song was written by Chloe Harris and I while sitting beside Joan’s grave, which has now become a place of pilgrimage for many people, for Joan has come to represent and champion the unfairly treated and abused poor folk of the world. May Joan now rest in great peace! Her fight is done…

The further we humans drift from Nature, the more clumsy & destructive are our efforts to re-connect. If your prayers are made of nylon, please take them home with you (or get better prayers). The young #Glastonbury holy thorn tree will not survive such intense draping in non-biodegradable waste. Sometimes people tell me I shouldn’t remove these plastic ribbons. They reckon it’s removing peoples’ hopes and wishes. My standard comeback is: the plastic ribbon is the prayer as much as the used condom is the act of love. Would you agree? Do you remove nylon ribbons from holy places? #glastonbury #holythorn #clooties #clouties #ribbons #prayer #sacred #holy #prayer #offering #nature