I’ve started work on a new project. It’s called ‘Words on the Water’ and it’s a course of creative writing inspired by Newport Canal. Funding for this project has come through Public Health at Telford & Wrekin Council, in support of social prescribing through GP surgeries. Every week our group of friendly people come along to Cosy Hall on Water Lane and we set off down the towpath to observe, talk and make notes about what we see.
So the place is the same, but each day’s different. As someone wrote last week:
Distances are short
but thought is long.
Here’s a flavour of what we’ve created so far:
here’s willow branches dipping
kissing the canal
I saw a frog, he was playing dead
a lovely green body and a shapely head
at the black gate we’re locked out
behind the black gate, the black dog
lilies stand up like yellow lollipops
& children’s voices shrill out
JEAN ATKIN 
I think the Newport canal is fascinating, Jean. It’s strange that it’s cut off. Hopefully one day it’ll rejoin the Shropshire Union Canal at Norbury Junction. Glad you’re producing work and love the thoughts and images shared.
Thanks for this Richard!
Jean, this is a lovely project with so much potential. And the contact through medical practices is so enlightened. Look forward to more poetry and pictures.
Thank you for your comment John! This has been a really wonderful project, working with Telford & Wrekin Council and their Public Health Practitioner and Health Champion. It’s the second such (the first being Songs of the Trees, in Telford Town Park last winter). Hugely rewarding work.