I wrote the ‘The hole in the wall’ at an Arvon creative writing course at Totleigh Barton many years ago.

A film I made earlier – 

I have always been attracted to dry stone walls. My grandfather had a stone wall in our built in our garden when I was a child. Grandmother had a serious back injury due to bomb damage on the house, so the only way she could manage the garden was to have a very long raised bed.

Of course the art of dry stone walling is well documented and still carried out today.

The hole in the wall

There is a garden I know

with an old dry stone wall.

I wonder who lives there,

perhaps no one at all.

Maybe a spider with spots brown and gold

a mouse with a family to keep from the cold.

A slithery snake could climb into the gap,

a hedgehog curl up for a long winter nap.

The hole is quite dark so I can’t really see

but I think there are eyes staring right back at me.

It could be a toad and this is his home

or a safe place for snails until babies have grown.

For bees it is handy because they like flowers,

they could make lots of honey which takes hours and hours.

But why not a dragon who blows fire and smoke

or a home for a gnome and magical folk.

A shifty black beetle runs past my nose,

if I watch him quite carefully I’ll see where he goes.

The floor is all earthy but I think I can see,

spotty brown toadstools as far as can be.

In the roof there’s a crack with a wee bit of light,

where a ladybird likes to crawl up and take flight.

Butterflies might want to hide from the rain,

rest for a while and fly off again.

There is a garden I know with an old dry stone wall

I wonder who lives there, perhaps no one at all.

A prototype of the book now published.