In September 2023, I took the plunge and booked my first writing retreat with the Arvon Foundation. They have three writing houses across the UK and I travelled down to Shropshire to The Hurst for a Poetry & Memoir Course.
Despite being rather daunted on Day 1, everyone was so friendly and supportive, I left a week later armed with new writing, lots of ideas and a bunch of lifelong writing friends.
Mornings were spent in writing workshops with two brilliant tutors. Afternoons were for exploring new ideas for prose and poetry, one to one tutorials and the occasional trek to the local town for wine!
Every afternoon, a group of us were on cooking duty. Great fun preparing the meal for everyone and getting to know my fellow writers. We wrote a funny poem about our meal…”Nigella Lawson’s chicken fillets” came into it somewhere!
On the last night we all had to perform a piece that we had developed during the week, rather nerve-wracking to speak in front of a crowd but I did it! Then we put the music on and let our hair down until bedtime.
Beautiful surroundings in the Shropshire countryside, on the border of Wales.
Poems I wrote during the week…
