11/04/2026
Another busy week along at Catch 23 rounding off with a BRILLIANT Writers Group session led by Shell Bromley focusing on Korean band BTS and traditional Korean folk song 'Arirang' (also the title of BTS latest album).
Many thanks to Shell to introducing us to both!🥰👍
After a delicious lunch of Cottage Pie prepared by Chef Jordan Montgomery group members went on to produce some FANTASTIC work.😋✍️👌
Below are just a few examples of the GREAT work group members have produced recently;
Song of the Soil
We gather we, soil for our wheelbarrow, taken from a ground left upon the land and spade by spade filled in a raised bed to which to place detritus of tree and plant to build a place for plants to lean into and grow from, that soil, that soil. Taken from the ground spade by spade and placed into a log jam backed against a neatly coiffured lawn, so that the bulbs could grow a position amongst the garden, a place to call home, to stay long enough for plants to bloom into full flowers and gain the immortality of propagation, the song of the soil.
Author: Hazel Mansfield
Let Us Part in Sadness
Let us part in promised silence
With questions left unanswered
Mumbled farewells and unheard sadness
Let us part in rush encouraged weather
With quick sodden hugs
And hastily closed doors
Let us part with lingering dances
Heavy regret
And tear painted smiles
Let us part with disquiet hearts
So we will try extra hard
To see each other again
Wet Leaves
Wet Leaves
Verdant green
Coated in drops
Crystaline Orbs
Of hydrating life
They reflect environment
And melt into membranes
Of flora structures
Webby networks that drain moisture
Chlorophyll energised
They transform
Into fruit and flowers
Trees and grass
And decay
To fuel life again
Of endless growth
That flourishes between
These wet leaves green
Author: Josie Mansfield-Townsend
Terry Pratchett
We used to listen to Terry Pratchett books
On the long journey from Nottingham to Lewis
My husband bought and read most of the books
So now I am on my own
I see them all sitting on the shelf
They do remind me of him
I recognize some of the names
Granny Weatherwax Nanny Ogg
Death Ank Morpork Rinceweed
Terry Pratchett was a great comedy fantasy writer
So I hope to start reading from the bookshelf
To remember and honour my husband
Author: Anonymous
Storwegian Christmas Miracle…
To the mother of the lovely young man who works in a well-known convenience store in Stornoway
I just want to verify that his seemingly ‘tall tale’ regarding why your Christmas bottle of Baileys was an inch or two short of full was TRUE.
I am the lucky recipient of a couple of inches of Baileys from your bottle purloined to fulfil my Baileys cheesecake dessert baking desires.
It was a very genuine and generous gesture from your son (whom you should be very proud of!) following me recounting my tale of woe, after fruitless hunting, that there was no Baileys, real or fake, to be purchased in Lewis on the Eve of Christmas 2025.
He disappeared out the back returning to hand me some of the precious Christmas nectar in a takeaway coffee cup from your Christmas bottle – his gift to you and my Christmas miracle.
Yours sincerely from the very grateful Point based Baileys recipient.
P.S. The cheesecake was delicious and we had every intention of keeping back a portion for yourself and your son but ALAS it was not to be, with sincere apologies from the bellies of my household.
Author: Anonymous
