"Look at it this way"

I have worked in the Fenland city of Ely for the last six years - commuting in all weathers and at all times through the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Fens... Edward Storey has died at the age of 88. He was a chronicler of the Fens: an author and poet. There was a lovely piece on Edward on BBC Radio Norfolk that I heard yesterday on the way home, which described him as 'a poet of place'. You walk the roof of the world here. Only the clouds are higher And they are not permanent. Trees are too distant for the wind to reach And mountains hide below the horizon. The wind labours through reed As though they were the final barrier. Houses and farms cling like crustations To the black hull of the earth. Here, you must walk with yourself, Or share the spirits of forgotten ages. Keith Skipper has written a lovely piece in the EDP. More to come on Edward in a future blog post.... Image: Alan Parkinson - Fens near Manea - CC licensed

A film which connects with Robert MacFarlane's book of the same title...

Check out this Robert MacFarlane tweet, and the replies that follow for a whole host of ideas on different people's ideal landscapes... Some wonderful images and brief descriptions ideal for sharing... "Tramlines and slagheaps, pieces of machinery, That was, and still is, my ideal scenery." WH Auden Question: what is your "ideal scenery"? pic.twitter.com/8QLS0HRZt9 — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) July 6, 2017

Good news earlier this week, as I heard that Peter Knight of Keele University and I are the recipients of a Royal Geographical Society Innovative Geography Teaching Grant to fund a joint project exploring landscapes and Changing Places. Here's a bit of text from the application document that I put together. Title of project: Inspirational Places: Changing Places 'A’ level teachers are currently teaching new exam specifications for the first time. The addition of ‘new’ areas including Global Governance has caused some concern. One area frequently included in requests for support on online forums and Facebook support groups is the Changing Places topic. I worked on a chapter in the CUP ‘A’ level textbook on this topic, and enjoyed revisiting themes first introduced in the OCR Pilot GCSE course. For some years, Dr. Peter Knight teaches a unit called ‘Inspirational Landscapes’ as a third year undergraduate module (level 6) as part of the BA and BSc Hons Geography degree ...

Now this is JUST my sort of thing...

An article in the Independent on the UK's natural wonders. "It's geology that has created our diverse and extraordinary natural wonders. We owe the creation of vertiginous cliffs and sea stacks to deposits of sandstone and chalk; soft limestone has been etched and scoured to carve craggy gorges, coastal arches and echoing caverns; and sculpted from extrusions of volcanic basalt are the weirdly geometric columns of causeways and sea caves".

For those interested in landscapes, this book is recommended... More to come on this as I get further into it, and start to use it for curriculum making...

ESRI have been working to produce a StoryMap , using the Cascade template, which has been designed to go along with the new book by RGS President Nicholas Crane. The book tells the story of the British Landscape, and how it came into being. Click the tabs at the top of the map to find out more about a range of topics: Edge Land Climate Change Island Altered Earth Fields Forts  Towns End of Wilderness Street Plan Heat Island Into Space As Nicholas says at the start of the book, to care about a place you have to know its story. This would be great for GCSE Geographers needing to know more about the distinctive landscape of the UK.

This book has had great reviews and is out in a week or so. It sounds like being useful for those teaching about landscapes and the link between people and physical geography.