Local author Helen Pugh pens a junior edition of her book about Somerset Following on from the success of Unsung Women in Somerset, local author Helen Pugh has now written a junior edition of the book, aiming to bring amazing women to the attention of children and their grown ups. Both versions of the book detail the…
Tag: Somerset
Words with Wine
Write up by Kev McCready Yeovil, a place known for gloves and helicopters is now known for something else – poetry! Eight on Silver Street became the first gig for the Alive Poets Society, a new collective of artists bringing poetry off the page and onto the stage. The collective formed of Dan Wakeman, Sarah…
Cadbury Castle
I enjoyed a lovely, sunny trip to Cadbury Castle recently. It’s like a mini Maiden Castle (in Dorset) for those who have been. If you’re taking little people it’s no more than a 10 minute ascent, which is fine for little legs, although you will likely need to explain that there is no chocolate and…
The medieval village of Dunster
Having lived in South Somerset for most of my life, it’s rare that I venture north of the county so I was delighted to get the opportunity to go to Dunster and it felt like a proper break being somewhere totally new for me. I was taken aback by the beauty of this medieval village…
Find your Christmas calm!
How do you maintain a sense of peace and calm at Christmas time? I must admit I usually prefer Halloween or Easter as they are much more low key celebrations. But there is no denying that Christmas is a magical time with the scent of pine needles in the air, spiced mulled wine, the kids…
Take 5 with artist Neil Whitehead
Welcome to my new feature ‘Take 5’. The idea is that you take 5 minutes out for yourself to have a read and learn about someone through 5 bits of work that represent them, it could be 5 yoga poses, 5 poems or in this case it’s 5 striking pieces of urban landscape art by…
Somerset Shines on tour!
I’m very excited to go on a tour of the UK with you, to meet three inspiring and creative women in London, Hampshire and Swansea respectively! The thing these ladies have in common… well they each have a blog or website in which they showcase their writing, photos and in Clara’s case her illustrations! Each…
What is a Smurfette?
“So what is a Smurfette? Noone wanted an answer more than Smurfette herself.” This is the opening line to the 2017 film, Smurfs the Lost Village. This is an immense film and does more for feminism than the recently unveiled Mary Wollstonecraft statue (although that isn’t hard!). The film strives to tell the story of…
Holly talks craft kits!
In this interview I talk to Holly, who was inspired to create craft kits that are good quality keepsakes that children treasure and don’t result in lots of clearing up for the parents: a win win situation! Bee and Pea’s Craft Kits is such a fabulous name for such a fabulous venture, and we all…
Somerset Shines is 1!
It’s a year since I launched my blog Somerset Shines and I wanted to share some of the things I’ve learnt along the way. I started the blog to share my joy in moving back to Somerset with my family just over two years ago. So here are a few tips on starting a blog…
Cupcakes and rainbows
Poppy and Branch are two characters from the Trolls movie. This movie offers so much insight into human nature that I just love watching it with my kids. In one exchange, Branch says to Poppy “The world isn’t all cupcakes and rainbows” Poppy replies “Hey I know it’s not all cupcakes and rainbows but I’d…
Word therapy
Is there such a thing as word therapy? Can arranging letters in a certain order be powerful enough to soothe our past, present and perception of the future? I believe that the answer to this is yes. Words can soothe, direct and heal us. In the current world climate it has to be OK to…
Somerset Soul 