Mark Cotter takes a break from his travels in Kent to guide us from sea to city (and scones), in his writing about two NWP meetings in August.

TWO SUMMER MEETINGS IN AUGUST!

IN THE LAND OF THE SOUTH FOLK

The drive up to Dunwich from Kent is unremarkable. Once one leaves the 'glories' of Medway behind, and one has crossed through the Dartord tunnel, then, the delights of the A12 bring one to Dunwich - eventually. I arrived with enough time to walk up to the Priory ruins and have a bite to eat for lunch before an ice-cream looking at the sea - which is where I met Jeni and three other intrepid writers from Suffolk.

With blankets spread about us, we settled down onto the beach for a bit of writing. An opening of words with a flavour of the coast, and then a writing prompt from Swims by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett led us to thinking about ourselves and others in the water. With the writing muscles thus limbered up, Jeni gave us a small piece of paper with a list of things to find or think about as we roamed the beach for a bit. In all honestly, I don't think I looked at the piece of paper once i had managed to get upright. I did use the time to connect with the sea, to listen to its rhythms and capture it - which, I hope, made it into my writing.

Once we had settled again on our rugs and blankets, we wrote about the beach and the sea. Some interesting writing came out of this, as we thought about Dunwich and, for some of us, included or alluded to, its history in our writing.  Our final piece of writing came from our own connection with the beach and growing up whether it was the sea being too far away, sand in the house, or preferring the beach in the winter. When all was written, when the cirrus had become a bit more cumulous and the sun was drifting in and out of view, it was time to vacate our little bit of beach and for me to head north and home.

IN THE LAND OF THE NORTH FOLK

Friday 23 August dawned and another meeting of Writing Teachers took place. This time, we were in our usual home, the Refectory of Norwich's Anglican Cathedral.

Being late August it was a small gathering - Jeni, Sarah and me. We were joined for a little bit by Jenny C who was busy teaching EAL students across the road from the cathedral precincts and joined us for her break. Jeni's prompts were about writing letters. Naturally there was a focus on the dying art of letter writing. We used a letter from Robert Pirosh about words to prompt our usual opening task of listing words, before using Let's Meet Somewhere Outside Time and Space by Diane Seuss to let our imagination and powers of metaphor run wild.

This was much more of a talking session than a writing one - sometimes they are. We never got as far as the final writing task - a letter unsent - as we spoke at length about experiences of coming across letters that others had written to us or that we had written home and parents had kept. Sometimes this kind of talk is a helpful way of starting something. I've been writing about old family photographs of late, and the discussions have given me a new avenue to explore as I piece together parts of an unknown, and fragmentary, family history. We are inspired in many ways, though the senses, objects or conversations. We aren't all gifted Proustian moments with a madeline. Which is just as well as, a Bread Source cheese scone demands its own, full, attention!

Mark Cotter