The Journal
Editorial calendar
What we are writing next: Winston updates, poems and seasonal guides, with the details for sending us your own.
Three standing strands
Winston updates
Walks, weather and the considered opinions of a golden retriever, filed roughly once a month.
2 planned
Poems
Short verse from the estate and from readers: the meadow, the yard, the Oast in bad light.
2 planned
Seasonal guides
What is worth doing in the High Weald, written ahead of the season it describes.
3 planned
Planned month by month
Working titles, written down so readers know what is coming. Pieces move, and some are held back until the weather or the record catches up with them.
September 2026
Seasonal guidesSeasonal guides & Christmas
Early autumn in the High Weald
The turn of the season on the lanes around Frant, and what the estate looks like once the light drops.
Winston updatesWinston’s Journal
Winston and the first proper mud
The Mud Index reopens for the season, with the usual disagreement about what counts as five paws.
October 2026
PoemsLife at Martins Farm
Verse for a wet meadow
A short poem for the left meadow beyond the second tree line, and an open call for reader verse.
Seasonal guidesSeasonal guides & Christmas
Half term without a plan
Slow days out within an easy drive of the yard, for families who would rather not book anything.
November 2026
Winston updatesWinston’s Journal
Winston on the boot room
A retriever's assessment of drying off properly, and the case for towels kept where they are needed.
Seasonal guidesLife at Martins Farm
Woodsmoke and the AGA
Cooking and keeping warm at The Oast as the clocks go back.
December 2026
PoemsLife at Martins Farm
Midwinter, Frant
Winter verse from the estate, alongside the best of the reader submissions received in the autumn.
Sending us something
We read everything that arrives, and we publish a little of it. Poems and short prose about this corner of the High Weald are the likeliest to find a place.
- Prose up to about 900 words, or verse of any length that earns it.
- Written about this corner of the High Weald, or about staying here — not general travel writing.
- Your own work, unpublished elsewhere, with your name as you would like it printed.
- Photographs welcome as separate files, with a line on where and when they were taken.
Work reaches us by the first of the month before the month it is written for; anything later is simply read for the month after.
Prefer a form? Use the contact page and mark it for The Journal.