Cramped space and poetry

Ted Hughes said he did his best writing while working  in a kind of cupboard rigged up as an office. He had left the desk looking out of the window for his wife Sylvia Plath to write at. They were still getting on at this time.

Sometimes poems can come in the most unusual circumstances.

Some research has been done on workstations and whether sitting at a a desk at all is helpful to doing work. One tip is to only go to your computer when you have something to do on it. Just staring at the blank screen (like a blank piece of paper) doesn't help anyone get creative.

So here is an odd idea for a Sunday...go and fix up some thinking room in a place you never go in your home, garden or anywhere really.

I was orienteering yesterday and ended up on my back pinioned between the twisting branches of a fallen tree I had just fallen over engulfed by deep bracken. I was competing but lay there a little while thinking how good the sky looked. And that I never see it that way normally.

Thanks to Kenraiz for the use of this photo. 

Burdock and velcro

Walking is the perfect aid to creativity.

For example, George de Mestral was walking in the Swiss mountains with his dogs. This was in the 1940s. Maybe the mountains helped a bit. He noticed the burrs from the burdock had got stuck in his dog's coat and were effectively taking a ride to help disperse themselves.

This thought stuck in his mind too and when he got home, he stuck the burrs under the microscope and realised they used hooks to hang in loops of matted animal hair.

Mestral was an inventor and eventually recreated these hooks and loops in plastic form to create velcro. Later to be used in David Letterman's famous velcro suit and garment fastening.

I recommend a walk in the woods.

For more useful vegetal stories, check out Richard Mabey's Weeds