• Cathedral - Forest of Dean
    Cathedral – Forest of Dean

    All Saints Church in Newland is unofficially known as the Cathedral of the Forest, but if you ask people where the cathedral is in the Forest of Dean, most will think of the stained glass piece on the Sculpture Trail at Beechenhurst.

    I’ve known it for 20 years now and it has stood up to the elements pretty well. I visited it last week and took this photo. It was made to last. The glass is protected in a polycarbonate sandwich and has resisted the various air pistol pot shots and stones that have been thrown at it. But it looks like it could maybe do with a bit of a clean to get some green off it and there are a few white holes where the colour seems to have worn off.

    Some of the sculptures have had a hard time or have simply been stolen or had parts nicked. A new one was recently graffitied and the most popular, Melissas’s Swing, which was meant to be a place of quiet contemplation, is treated more like a theme park ride. At least they get people out in the woods and connecting a little with nature. You don’t have to go far off the way-marked trail to find you have the whole forest to yourself. I guess people are scared to get lost. I don’t think you’d be lost for very long. The forest is criss-crossed with roads and track.

    My new series, Monster Boy is set in a Forest not dissimilar to the Forest of Dean. Perhaps I should have a few walks and take a few pictures of the places that inspire the stories. Actually, that’s a great idea.

  • Oh dear. What has happened with the writing on Coronation Street. It used to be so well written, well observed and genuinely funny.

    Now the police are involved in every other episode and violence is the order of the day. It’s almost like East Enders.

    Plots either occur way too fast, (Ashley’s vasectomy operation was fixed up in an afternoon without any counseling – I truly hope that is not possible in the real world) or way too slow -surely someone would have realised that David Platt is a psychopath by now?

  • Blue Pooh - or crushed beetles
    Blue Pooh – or crushed beetles
    I went for a walk in the Forest over the weekend, and came across what I think must be a pile of blue pooh. How can this be? Well, I think it is the waste matter from a creature that has been eating beetles. There seem to be a lot of beetles about too, several crossed my path on my walk.

    I’m not an infallible naturalist, but I think that these are the crushed exoskeletons of beetles that have either been regurgitated or poohed after the yummy insides have been absorbed.

    Nature blue in tooth and claw. I couldn’t say who the eater was.