charles barrow's writing

I've been watching the blackbirds in my garden; male, female and baby. All three rush around the lawn, searching for worms. The juvenile is learning the ropes from its parents. Soon the parents will stop feeding it, and it'll have to fly off and find its own territory. I sometimes see the male blackbird, on a high branch in the plane tree in the street outside, or sitting on top of the freshly trimmed hedge that divides street from garden. I do hear him singing some evenings, a loud, melodious, full throated song, designed to carry through the thick woodlands, wherein these birds used to live. Thick woodlands are no longer as common as they were, so my blackbird lives in a hedged around garden, and sings a song that is now a little extra for his surroundings. It's said to be good luck if a blackbird nests near your house. And in Celtic mythology a blackbird is believed to be one of the three oldest animals in creation, the first bird. The other two creatures are the stag an...

I'll always stop to read a blue plaque on the wall of a house, to satisfy my idle curiosity about who may have been born, lived, briefly visited (yes I'm talking about you Charles Dickens), or died in the property. Very often I find I haven't even heard of the luminary being honoured, so it's as well the plaque always tells me what said honouree did for a living, or why they're being recognised. However, I recently came upon this beautiful slate plaque on the stone gatepost of a very large house in Oxford, and whilst the written information on offer is minimal, this is more than compensated for by the simple visual cue, which is stellar. Photo is the author's own.

Emergence I steel myself to step outside. A final glance through the window reveals crystal blue skies, an early sun gilding black branches, glittering frost in pockets of shadow on the borders; riming emerald crocus spears. “Bury them deep. Bulbs are a promise of brighter days. Like treasure.” These were almost his final words to me, as we laboured last autumn. “Golds, amethysts, pearls. Riches for when you’ll need them most. Afterwards.” I’d been wrapped in a smothering duvet of despair. Since. With neither the will nor strength to cast it off. My heart a bitter winter graveyard of grief.  Yet today breaks, somehow, differently. Those resolute crocuses will have pushed their way through earth like iron, just as he’d promised. A reminder that hard winters do fall away, springtime does return, offering renewal. I crack open my door. Birdsong drifts in and calls me out into a newly defined world. Photo is the authors own  

I grew a terracotta pot full of ranunculus once, many years ago. It was a glorious sight and bought joy to my heart. The cultivated ranunculus, or ranunculus asiaticus, or Persian Buttercup, is indeed related to the common buttercup, but is a much larger plant, has a tight whorl of petals, and comes in a variety of colours - pink, orange, yellow, white, or red, as opposed to the primarily yellow, open face of the smaller, wild buttercup that sprouts every year on the lawns outside. My favourite colour of ranunculus is orange. It is the vibrant, vivid orange of the marigold, the California poppy, the Solero ice lolly. I've attached a photo of some orange California poppies that I grew last year, to give you an idea of the colour I'm talking about here. That first pot of ranunculus I grew was wildly successful. I think because I grew it back then in complete ignorance of just how fussy a plant a ranunculus is. The soil, the moisture and the temperature levels have all got to be ...

Not a good month for me, on a personal level. In fact, the last eight months have brought loss and grief and anxiety on a large scale. This month brought more terrible news, and still more lurks on the near horizon. January is always a long, dark month to be gotten through, but this one is the darkest in memory. So I have been particularly grateful when I have happened upon something that has brought a little light and positivity into my life, and has taken me out of my day-to-day. Books (IQ84 Murakami), films (Wonka), nature (planting Spring bulbs), and wildlife (taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch) have all helped to get me through. And a big help, from an unexpected quarter was the night sky. The freezing, cloudless nights through early to mid-January, afforded me a wonderful view of the Wolf Moon as it transformed from a fingernail fragment to a full moon over the course of weeks, and what made it even more special was the dazzlingly bright planet Venus hanging in the sky behin...

"Trashy Tales of Terror : cheesy horror fiction featuring creepy kids, killer animals, mutants and monsters, etc." The above caught my eye when I was perusing the submission guidelines for an anthology called Trash Tales, to be published next summer, but with a submission deadline of midnight on December 31st. Happy New Year. There is also a 5,000  word limit for entries. There were any number of other suggested categories to submit stories in, from Sci-Fi to romance to cosy crime, in fact, as the guidelines state on the website (see link at the end), "Your story can be in any category or genre you like, as long as it's what we might all consider of a trashy nature!" I learned of this opportunity whilst watching a #booktube channel, on Youtube. Alex Unabridged was the channel - you can link to their site here  youtube.com/@alex_unabridged  Alex will be producing/editing the anthology along with Olly from CriminOlly - you can find his #booktube channel here  yout...