This flourishing greenery is sprouting near the gangplank of one of Bristol’s most notable vessels, the John Sebastian Lightship. where I’m co-hosting Writing on Water with poet Helen Sheppard on Saturday 22nd October (just one ticket left, but more workshops like this planned for the future!).

How have these seeds found their way into the wood of this boat? Where have they travelled from, and where has the Lightship carried them? What stormy weather have they withstood to thrive in this unlikely spot?

Could you use this hardy and persistent plant-life as a metaphor?

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I spotted this bench at Buxton’s Pavilion Gardens. Along its top are carved the words: ‘Happy to chat’. What a simple and lovely way to encourage friendliness and counteract loneliness! I have to confess, I sat on it without reading the message, but as I’m almost always glad to have a natter, it wouldn’t have been a problem if someone mistook my intentions and joined me.

I don’t know if you can read it, but the bench’s words state that it’s paid for by Soroptimist International, which I googled to discover a ‘worldwide volunteer service organisation for women who work for peace, and in particular to improve the lives of women and girls.’

What a lovely thought! It sounds to me like a inconspicuous brand of superhero, spreading comfort and community.

What story ideas does this prompt in you?

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

How do you write about water, and harness its power in your words?

Does it trickle? Surge? Roar?

Is it hungry? Foreboding? Volatile? Reflective? Tranquil?

Is it a backdrop?

A playground?

A graveyard?

A symbol of climatic change?

A way to examine loneliness, or love?

Can you use it as a metaphor for a relationship on the rocks?

To explore mental health?

To furtively or overtly examine fertility?

What does the sea wash up, transform or leave behind?

Whether you write about a raindrop or an ocean, you can harness water as a powerful writing muse.

Taking place on Bristol’s Lightship from 10am to 3pm on Saturday 22nd October, the Writing on Water workshop with Helen Sheppard and Judy Darley will include writing prompts, generative exercises and an inspiration-gathering stroll on Bristol harbourside.

Tickets for Writing on Water are available here.

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I have a fondness for Victorian follies. Imagine having so much money that nothing pleases you more than to spend it on a building no one can live, work or create in? Well, possibly you could do all three, but with gaping windows and nothing to prevent gale winds whistling through, Solomon’s Temple on Grin Low Hill in Buxton would not be the ideal spot to focus on anything other than the outstanding views.

I also love the fact that this Grade II-listed, 20ft-high edifice is so blatant about it purposelessness that it’s actually defined as a folly. While some claim it was named afterSolomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, others say it replaced the ruins of a tower built by Solomon Mycock, a local farmer and landowner, and is named for him.

Other intriguing details include the fact that it sits atop of Bronze Age barrow, where several skeletons were unearthed when it was built in 1894.

When I visited, the interior was puddled with cow dung. A winding staircase leads up to the tower’s viewing platform.

Imagine being the person who commissioned this folly. What prompted their need for this hillside statement? Who did they want to impress?

Who designed it? What criteria were they attempting to meet?

Any why build it on top of a Bronze Age burial chamber?

So many directions you could rattle off in from this curious construction!

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

The beauty of Chew Magna Lake in Somerset is enhanced by the clouds in the sky above and reflected rather gloriously on the reservoir’s lightly rippled surface.

It’s common to see curious shapes such as cats, elephants and dragons in clouds. Imagine if that was taken a step further, and the reflections showed something more or other than what’s seen above.

Can you turn this into a diptych of a tale that tells both what there is and what could be or has been? What could this perceived view reveal about the characters who see it?

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

On a sunny day strolling around Bristol Harbour, I spotted a school of vast fish shoaling and feasting on some water foliage. The gull bobbing on the surface seems to have no concerns about what could brush against their feet at any moment, or even try a nibble.

It made me think about how little we’re aware of what happens beneath our feet, or of the threats that lurk, occasionally in plain sight. Often we underestimate the things that could cause harm. Imagine if one fish in the photo above were to choose to sample ‘gull surprise’, and the carnage that could trigger! Would the gull flap into action and flee to safety? What if they realised too slowly what was happening and found themselves unable to escape?

Can you turn this idea into a tale with a feisty, defiant protagonist at its heart?

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I often feel anxious when I see trees emblazoned with coloured splotches in a local woodland. It generally indicates a tree set to be felled or trimmed.

Some helpful person has decided to make this ash tree’s foreboding embellishment a little cheerier, however, by adding eyes and a vibrant head of hot-pink hair.

Will it be enough to save the tree from execution? Will the tree surgeons smile and take their chainsaw elsewhere?

Or is this comical character an unlikely guardian (I’m thinking along the lines of Clarence in It’s A Wonderful Life), protecting the ash tree from harm?

What direction could you take this story in?

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I have a fondness for that curious view of the underside of bridges you can only see from water. This one is a particular beauty – the serpentine 91-metre Castle Bridge that wends its way from Castle Park to Finzels Reach in Bristol.

From this angle it could almost be the scaled belly of an immense reptile. Alternatively, it could be a futuristic home for a miniature civilisation living beneath the feet but above the ferries of the humans who visit and inhabit this city.

Can you turn one of these ideas into a story or dream up one of your own?

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Remember how during lockdown the skies were eerily still without human traffic? Only birds, insects and weather inhabited those spaces.

When the first contrails (the vapour trails aeroplanes leave in clear skies) appeared, most people felt hope. Normal life was resuming.

But glancing up now, I see a traffic jam of countless people zipping off for holidays and work. We’ve gone back to all the bad habits we paused in the early months of the pandemic.

Can you turn this sobering thought into a story? Can you tell it through the eyes of someone who might want, or even know how, to make a change?

If you write or create something inspired by water, please send an email to judydarley (at) icloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.