It was a wonderful – and busy – weekend in Canterbury at the Wise Words festival, albeit with moments of calm such as this one aboard the poetry punt, where we took the audience from the earlier talk with John Siddique, Lemn Sissay and me off on an evening river ride.

And particularly so as I’ve had several sleepless nights recently wondering if anyone would ‘get’ my rewritten park signs…

… made brilliantly by Wendy Daws and produced by Reauthoring – here’s Wendy and me with one of the signs, still smiling after what seemed like hours of early morning setting up:

But I needn’t have worried. The response we got was amazing, just hearing people laugh or take photographs made it all worthwhile. I caught this Italian tourist taking his shoes off to walk barefoot on the grass as instructed, and he said, ‘all parks should have them!’

Here’s the first Canterbury Laureate, Patricia Debney, playing too…

I’ve written several times before about this HUGE tree in Westgate Gardens because there’s so obviously a bench swallowed inside, so a plaque seemed fitting:

Well, it was fun to watch people look twice (the whole point behind the project)…

and then to stay stalking watching, just in case, would he, wouldn’t he…

and YES, bingo. He listened…

While over at Solly’s Orchard, there was an origami orchard…

… and at Greyfriars, more people than I dared hope entered the hermit’s hut…

… to write a card to a stranger …

… and to pick up one too…

I particularly loved this ‘intervention’ because the cards were mostly part of a strange and varied collection I’ve been using regularly for writing workshops. They needed liberating, so it was satisfying to see people sift through for the one that ‘spoke’ to them…

And maybe even some friendships between strangers will be made… I’m on the look out for someone called DANUKA by the way – if that’s you, and you wrote a card over the weekend, your stranger wants to talk to you!

So, a perfect weekend – the sun shone…

… and books were shared from the Bookbarrows (thanks again Notcutts!)

… and favourite poems discussed at Peggy Riley’s salon…

I have to say I’m still processing it all personally because it was odd to do a project that took so much time but was only up for a weekend. But I guess it’s all about letting go and it’s appropriate perhaps, that this sign was one of the ones that ‘disappeared’…

… not least because I share this stranger’s sentiment – I’m still thinking about the ‘feeling’ too …

If you were at Westgate or any of the Canterbury gardens over the Wise Words Festival, and took photographs of any of the signs or postcards, I’d love to hear from you! The punt and three poets photograph above are by Will Gould and Adelina Comas Herrera respectively. Thank you.