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words: Josephine Ruffles photos: Simona Peneva

Perfect for both plant experts and those who can’t manage to keep a simple cactus alive, Chan from Sap Plants has started hosting regular terrarium workshops across Nottingham. Crafting a plant landscape enclosed in a glass container, the creative experience is a perfect wellness activity. Ahead of her next workshop, we catch up with Chan to talk about keeping plants alive, wellbeing and what to expect from the classes…

Chan, a self-described plant enthusiast, founded Sap Plants after her own collection grew exponentially and she learnt the different ways of owning plants. She taught herself how to make terrariums and gifted them to family and friends one Christmas. After that, she realised how much she’d want to share her love of making them with others - and Sap was born.

As you stroll, try not to scroll. Our hectic lives can centre around our phones. The convenience they offer has changed the way we interact with the world but they can also be a distraction. The usage has shortened our attention spans and can make it hard to mentally switch off. Sometimes the best thing you can do is switch IT off.

A friend of mine told me that turning off their phone causes them anxiety, so they compromise and put it on silent and check it every 45 minutes. It gives them a chance to disconnect but not stress about missing important messages. The aim is to be present and in the moment, take in the sights and sounds. Breathe deeply and smell the air/touch the bark on the trees, go in for a hug if you like – tree hugging is a real and very beautiful way to connect with the earth. Grounding yourself in nature once a week will boost your mental clarity and keep you fit. And remember to ‘leave nothing but footprints’.

So for this month’s Affirmation:

I Am Connected To The Natural World

Until next time, my loves… Be safe, no fear and stay blessed.

It took a lot of trial and error but her method of making terrariums has gone unchanged. She uses a mixture of key ‘ingredients’ and decorative aspects. Talking through how they’re made in the workshops, she explains how each layer serves a purpose, such as the sprinkling of white stones acting as a drainage system. The main plant she uses are fittonias, which are known for being veiny-looking and make up the most colourful aspect of the terrarium. However, as she explains, people decorate their plant havens in different ways - although the plants are mainly all the same, she has had some people include Lego figures or pebbles to add a personal touch inside.

Throughout the workshops, you can expect to join a community or ‘society’ of plant lovers and learn about terrariums or different plants together. Chan explains how the sessions can be individual as well as communal, including quieter times while working on the more difficult aspects, and then laughing while struggling to pot the seedlings in the soil.

It can be a very mindful hour, she continues, adding that “you’re truly at one with the plants” - a sole focus on the terrarium provides a healthy focus and distraction away from other aspects of life. And creating and caring for these plants can seriously increase your mental wellbeing - science has found that having house plants, especially for people who work from home, can consistently relax and calm levels of stress and anxiety.

Saying this, many people (myself included) do have an issue with keeping plants alive, and thanks to either watering it too little or far too much, struggle to maintain that inside green space. However, as Chan explains, by having a terrarium or specific types of plants, this issue can be overcome. Terrariums, for example, are a self-sufficient environment as each aspect of it creates a climate where the plant can survive without someone watering it. Other house plants including pothos plants and peace lilies are perfect within the climate of Nottingham houses, and for someone like me, she says they’re “pretty indestructible” if you care for it to some extent. That extent being sunlight and watering once a month, which doesn’t sound too hard!

A society as much as a session, Chan’s terrarium workshops are perfect for like-minded individuals with the common interest of plants and wellbeing. As is noticeable on Sap Plants website, the society aspect is relevant in their merchandise too. Chan tells me that the idea came from other plant groups such as the British Cactus and Succulent Society, but she developed hers to be centred around, and originate from, more than just that - becoming inspired by the seventies and the specific album Plantasia, which had a different song for separate house plants.

So, if owning plants seems a bit daunting, and you’re not sure where to start, join a Sap Plants workshop and indulge yourself in the experience and environment of making terrariums with a group of like-minded people - and introduce some greenery into your home that’s tough for even the least adept gardeners to kill!

You can book a ticket for the terrarium workshop on Sap Plant’s website sapplants.co.uk @sap_plants

You probably know D. H. Lawrence, you’ve most likely heard of Alan Sillitoe, but does the name James Prior ring any bells? Author of six novels including 1901’s Forest Folk, Prior was dedicated to depicting rural life in Nottinghamshire. We learn more about the author who time has forgotten…

However much we cherish literature, the truth is that we forget most books. The classics get reprinted again and again, but the rest tend to fall by the wayside. Fewer people buy them, they fall out of popularity and before long, we don’t even remember the author’s name. Yet every now and again, someone will find a remnant of them - a single piece of thread that unravels a whole mystery, and tells the story of an entire career. And this is exactly what happened for Ailish D’Arcy when she set about investigating James Prior, the Nottingham author who was cherished by the likes of J. M. Barrie and D. H. Lawrence.

But how did Ailish begin on this journey? Where did she find that first piece of thread? Well, it happened thanks to a literary tour and an offhand comment. “I enrolled on a four-week course with (local literary historian) John Baird as a way to get out of the house after the pandemic,” Ailish explains, “and when I mentioned to John that I lived in Bingham, he said that he knew of an author from there - James Prior.” Then, stemming from this small interaction, Ailish found herself on a mission to learn more. “It was like something took over me and I wasn’t prepared to let it rest,” she laughs, as we sit in a coffee shop, discussing Prior’s life.

So, after contacting a whole bevy of academics and sleuthing through archives, a picture began to emerge. That of an extraordinary Nottinghamshire author, who most people in the county have never heard of. Born in 1851 on Mapperley Road, James Prior (originally James Kirk) was one of five children. Birthed into a family of straw hat makers, Prior got a strong sense of faith and morality from his father, alongside a love of the countryside and reading. Though, it wouldn’t be until his teenage years that he would first read Dickens, Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott, after which point he developed a steadfast ambition to become a writer - disregarding his parents' wishes for him to study law.

Prior worked away at his poetry and novels, but his success wasn’t instant, and he had to find other ways to make a living. Namely, he spent a while teaching at a boys’ boarding school, helping run the family business after his father’s death and, most notably, supporting his uncle, who was a butcher and grazier in Blidworth. This landscape and the people who lived there would go on to inspire his novels. However, the most notable event in this time was falling in love with his wife-to-be Lily, whom he married in 1886 and had three children with. “A remarkable woman,” as Ailish tells me, she was the one who encouraged Prior to focus on his writing over any business endeavours. Without her, many of his novels would likely never have been written. “Everything I’ve found indicates that Prior was just wandering before he met Lily,” Ailish says, “trying to find himself in both writing and business. Then, when they met, it seemed like two halves of one person coming together.” innate worth of human beings. “Prior’s work says that everyone has value and that we can learn from everyone. He had a great sense of social justice,” Ailish adds, “and on top of that, he had a great love for the English countryside, and a desire to capture the specific atmosphere of the East Midlands.”

Situated in Bingham with a young family, Prior continued to write, and he published many novels and short stories, including Three Shots from a Popgun and Live and Let Live in the 1880s, then novels like Renie in 1895 and Ripple and Flood in 1897. The latter of which was described as “vivid, original and impressive” by The Scotsman, with one reviewer in The Times comparing Prior to Dickens and Thomas Hardy for his depiction of both rural communities and local poverty. Yet, it wasn’t until 1901, by which time Prior was already in his fifties, that he published his most famous novel, his pièce de résistance, Forest Folk - the novel which really established him as a writer devoted to capturing the East Midlands dialect and spirit.

Also operating as a piece of local history, Prior’s novels are unique in their dedication to using local dialect and the characters speak as rural Nottingham people would have done then. The author spent a lot of time compiling lists of local words, which he’d then include in his novels and add to The English Dialect Dictionary. “He captures the words from the south of the county, which are very agricultural,” Ailish explains. “Many of these words went out of use when things became more urbanised, so it’s a true linguistic heritage.”

Sadly, though, none of Prior’s other work achieved the same level of success as Forest Folk, and while he kept writing novels for another nine years, they didn’t reach the same heights. Publishing his last book, Fortuna Chance, in 1910, James fell into a downward spiral after the death of his wife in 1914, and the death of his son - who passed away in the First World War, from which Ailish suggests he never recovered. After the war, the whole landscape of writing had also changed, and post-war literature was quite different from pre-war literature. “You had modernism coming in,” Ailish notes, “and Prior began to seem oldfashioned. He seemed very formal.” From this, combined with his grief, the writer began to draw back from the public and faded away.

Telling the tale of a southern Arthur Skrene arriving in Blidworth to claim his inherited farm, it’s a story that captures class, romance, prejudice and country life. “It’s got great characters, some class conflict, the background of the Luddite Rising and the Napoleonic Wars; all the elements came together and captured people’s attention,” Ailish tells me. And, like the rest of his work, it also has a message about the

Nonetheless, to dismiss Prior as a tragedy would be too simplistic, and his impact as both an author and a historian is not to be underestimated. “During a period of fifteen years, he produced six novels, four of which surely deserve to rank as classics,” Ailish writes in her book, In Search of James Prior, and many such texts are still being discovered by readers today. Likewise, in his personal sphere, he appeared to have had a deeply fulfilling family life and a great love with Lily. So, though forgotten, at least for a little while, James Prior did in fact have a life well lived, and well loved.

You can purchase Ailish D’Arcy’s book In Search Of James Prior from spokesmanbooks.org or from Five Leaves Bookshop

WEDNESDAY 1 MARCH

�� Kwame Asante

Canalhouse

£10, 7.30pm

�� John Lucas

Five Leaves Bookshop Free - £3, 7pm - 8.30pm

�� major ruse curates – melonyx [jazz / neo soul / hip hop]

Peggy’s Skylight

£10

�� Prue Leith: Nothing In Moderation

Nottingham Playhouse

£25 - £31, 7.30pm

�� Death Valley Girls

The Bodega

£12, 7pm

�� Teen Bookclub

Waterstones Free, 6.30pm

THURSDAY 2 MARCH

�� A Bunch of Amateurs

The Studio Theatre

£10, 7.30pm

�� Kit Trigg - Live in The ChapelNottingham

The Angel Microbrewery & The Chapel 7pm

�� Banff Mountain Film Festival

World Tour

Nottingham Playhouse

£17, 7.30pm

�� An Evening With T. M. Logan

Waterstones £5, 6.30pm

�� Express Office Portico

The Bodega £8, 7pm

FRIDAY 3 MARCH

�� Live Music With N.E.O. New Art Exchange Free, 7pm - 9pm

�� Get Lucky Rock City £35, 10pm

FRIDAY 3 MARCH

�� A Bunch of Amateurs The Studio Theatre £10, 7.30pm

�� Susanna: Piano Series Metronome £12, 7pm

�� I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall 7.30pm

SATURDAY 4 MARCH

�� Absolute Anthems Bistro Live £32.95

�� pure desmond plays james bond songs [jazz] Peggy’s Skylight £12

�� Jurassic World - In Concert Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall £27.50, 7pm

�� Matt Guy Stealth £5, 10pm

�� Introduction to Clay with Kyra Cane The Harley Gallery & Portland Collection £165, 10am

SUNDAY 5 MARCH

�� Sunday Piano Series - Iyad Sughayer Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall £12, 11am

�� The Gilded Merkin: Burlesque and Cabaret The Glee Club £18, 6pm

�� Attila Rescue Rooms £18, 5pm

�� Sinfonia Viva: Masters of German Baroque Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall £15.50, 4pm

MONDAY 6 MARCH

�� A Sunday in Hell Broadway Cinema £12, 7pm

�� AKIRA (35th Anniversary Screening), at the Savoy Savoy Cinema £5, 8.30pm

�� King No-One Rescue Rooms

£12, 7.30pm

�� The Classic Rock Show Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£32.50, 7.30pm

TUESDAY 7 MARCH

�� Dance and Movement Workshops with Cool Company Nottingham Contemporary 10am - 12pm

�� Pressure Rescue Rooms Free, 10pm - 3am

�� Bodega Quiz

The Bodega £12, 7.30pm

�� Hostile Djanogly Theatre Free, 5.45pm

WEDNESDAY

8 March

�� Nottingham City WI Monthly Meeting MCO Centre 7.30pm - 9.30pm

�� James Haskell: Sex, Tries and Videotape

The Glee Club

£26.50, 6pm

�� FARA

Djanogly Theatre £18, 7.30pm

�� Loyle Carner: Signing Rough Trade £15.50, 12pm

�� Fuzzy Sun

The Bodega £12, 7pm

THURSDAY 9 MARCH

�� Lost in Music Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£27.50 - £37.50, 7.30pm

�� Through the Decades with NTU Music

Newton and Arkwright

£5, 7.30pm

�� Film Screening: Portrait of a Miner and Band Fever

Djanogly Theatre

£3, 7pm

�� bryan corbett quintet [blue note jazz]

Peggy’s Skylight

£6 - £12

�� Costanza Casati Waterstones £5, 6.30pm

FRIDAY 10 MARCH

�� SCRUFFY Nonsuch Studios

£10, 7.30pm

�� Jake Burns Live At Rough Trade Nottingham Rough Trade

£6.50, 7pm

�� Camo & Krooked Stealth £14, 10pm

�� Women’s Day - MOAN Zine Below Bricks

£4, 9pm - 2am

SATURDAY 11 MARCH

�� Creating Fresh Fiction with Clare Harvey Malt Cross

£35, 11am

�� The Little Prince Lakeside Arts

£8.50, 6pm

�� 150th Rachmaninoff

Anniversary Concerts

Albert Hall

£5, 3pm

�� Liquid Light Workshop Make It Easy Lab

£120, 11am

SATURDAY 11 MARCH

�� How can Notts youth tackle climate justice in Nottingham? Nottingham Contemporary Free, 5.30pm - 7pm

�� Giant Cookie Baking Class Clemie’s Vegan Cakes 10am - 1pm

SUNDAY 12 MARCH

�� The Little Prince Lakeside Arts £8.50, 1pm

�� Cockney Rejects The Old Cold Store £22, 5pm

�� 150th Rachmaninoff Anniversary Concerts Albert Hall £5, 7.30pm

�� Solve-Along-A-Murder-SheWrote Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall £24.50, 7.30pm

��Makers’ Market The Embankment Free, 11am - 4pm

MONDAY 13 MARCH

�� Rebirth of Cool The Bodega Free

�� The Big Quiz Malt Cross £1, 7.30pm

�� Horn in Hand Quiz The Horn in Hand £0.50, 7.30pm

�� Mary Cassatt: Painting the Modern Woman Broadway Cinema £12

TUESDAY 14 MARCH

�� Opera North - The Cunning Little Vixen Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall £22, 7pm

TUESDAY 14 MARCH

�� Battle of the Bands

Metronome Free, 7pm

�� Hayseed Dixie Rescue Rooms

£19, 6.30pm

�� Sleaford Mods Rock City

£15, 7pm

�� Samantha Shannon in conversation Waterstones £8, 6.30pm

WEDNESDAY 15 MARCH

�� Dementia Drop-in Tiger CIC Free, 10.30am - 1.30pm

�� THE SERFS

JT Soar £11, 7.30pm

�� the james taylor quartet [funky acid jazz] Peggy’s Skylight £15

�� Anything Goes - The Musical Savoy Cinema £11, 7pm

�� Jeshi The Bodega £10, 7pm

THURSDAY 16 MARCH

�� Opera North - Tosca Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£22, 7pm

�� WRAP Café

Nottingham Contemporary Free, 6pm

�� What Happens When We Read?

With Mahsuda Snaith Mansfield Central Library Free, 2pm

�� Krapp’s Last Tape Lakeside Arts £12, 7.30pm

FRIDAY 17 MARCH

��Opera North - Ariadne auf Naxos Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£22, 7pm

�� Candle Making & Gilding Debbie Bryan

£45, 1pm

�� Single & Mingle The Wine Room City

£9.95, 7pm

�� Tom Grennan Motorpoint Arena Nottingham

£38, 6pm

�� The Joy Formidable Rescue Rooms

£18.50, 6.30pm

SATURDAY 18 MARCH

�� Opera North - Tosca Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£22, 7pm

�� Barstool Preachers The Old Cold Store £16.50, 7pm

�� Little Brickhouse Fundraiser Little Brickhouse TBC

�� Death Cab For Cutie Rock City

£30, 6.30pm

�� Celestines The Bodega £7, 7pm

SUNDAY 19 MARCH

�� Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£29.50, 7.30pm

�� Anything Goes - The Musical Savoy Cinema

£11, 2.30pm

�� Reading Room: A Commonplace Nottingham Contemporary Free, 10am - 5pm

MONDAY 20 MARCH

�� Heathers (1989)

Savoy Cinema

£5 - £6.95, 8.30pm - 10.30pm

�� Stiff Little Fingers Rock City

£27.50, 7pm

�� Neighbours: The Celebration Tour Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£37.50, 7.30pm

TUESDAY 21 MARCH

�� Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble University Hall £5 - £25, 7pm

�� Jazz Steps at Libraries presents The Pete Donaldson Blues Band Worksop Library £12, 7.30pm

Encounters with Achilles Djanogly Theatre

£3, 1pm

�� Darren Hayes Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£27.50, 7.30pm

WEDNESDAY 22 MARCH

�� jMike McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle Djanogly Theatre

£22, 7.30pm

�� jasmine myra Peggy’s Skylight

£12

�� Paul Draper Rescue Rooms

£25, 6.30pm

THURSDAY 23 MARCH

�� Manchester Collective: Black Angels Djanogly Recital Hall £20, 7.30pm

�� Badly Drawn Boy Metronome £25, 7pm

FRIDAY 24 MARCH

�� Joey Collins & The Bushido Code Metronome

£5 - £10, 7pm

�� Wild Onion Nonsuch Studios £10 - £10, 7.30pm

�� 1985 music nottingham - alix perez, visages, sp:mc The Brickworks £15.10, 10pm

�� The Steve Hillage Band Rock City £32.50, 12pm

SATURDAY 25 MARCH

�� Spring Fantasia Albert Hall £5, 7.30pm

�� The Waeve Rescue Rooms £20, 6.30pm

�� Ashe Rock City £18.30, 6.30pm

�� Limelight Backstage Tour Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall

£10, 10.30am

SUNDAY 26 MARCH

�� Little Listeners: Mini Vixen Lakeside Arts £8, 1pm

�� Workshop: Bug Bot Lakeside Arts £8, 10am

�� LUSH X Nourish Me Wild Wellness Rituals Lush Nottingham £35, 5.30pm

�� Eels Rock City £35, 6.30pm

�� Watson Fothergill Walk Meet outside Tourism Centre £15, 10am

MONDAY 27 MARCH

�� BERRIES The Bodega £9, 7pm

TUESDAY 28 MARCH

�� Tide Lines Rescue Rooms £16, 6.30pm

�� I PREVAIL Rock City £20, 6.30pm

�� Dune Rats The Bodega £15, 7pm

WEDNESDAY 29 MARCH

�� SHORT FICTIONS / OTHER HALF JT Soar £10, 7.30pm

�� Kate Mosse Nottingham Playhouse £30, 7.30pm

�� ALASKALASKA The Bodega £10, 7pm

THURSDAY 30 MARCH

�� Is Reading Creative? Clare Harvey in Conversation Beeston Library Free, 7pm

�� The K’s Metronome £14, 7pm

FRIDAY 31 MARCH

�� Phil Wang: Wang In There, Baby! Nottingham Playhouse £24, 7.30pm

�� ALT BLK ERA The Bodega £7.50, 7pm