my (elastic) gap year

Moonlight flit

2010-03-31T15:02:00.002+01:00

This blog needs a whole lot of updating, so I've decided to set up a new home at wordpress. So please crossover see my new blog it'sabouttime

Reconnecting

2010-03-22T23:55:00.008Z

Well things finally seem a little brighter. N was able to sit up for quite a while yesterday and we had a good chat and a few laughs. She has been experiencing terrible headaches due to the surgery leaving a tiny tear in the dura,the membrane over the spinal column and it's been upsetting to watch her deal with it. But the tear is beginning to heal, and she even managed a few steps outside today.

And D, my other breast cancer friend of long-standing, has asked me to take her for a hospital oncology appointment on Wednesday, as her husband is away on business. She is doing an oral chemo, to treat a recurrence, that has the nasty side effect of stripping the skin from your hands and feet, which means she can't drive at present.
But the chemo is doing some good, so what she's putting up with is not in vain.

It feels good to be helping them both out, it reminds me how lucky I am.

As for the rest of the world I continue to be scunnered with the election campaign. I want to start a Facebook group called "I demand a line on ballot paper headed none of the above". The thought of the St Elmo's Fire generation of the Tory party forming the next Government makes me shudder. And yet I don't want to see the Labour party, as it currently functions, re-elected.

I've done some interesting things in my absence,including a local radio broadcast with Colin, where I got to read a few poems. And this Thursday morning I'm reading at Hendersons in Edinburgh with two other Calder Wood Press writers, which I'm really looking forward to. (BTW Calder Wood Press now has Paypal for international orders)

I also had part of the house painted, which was great, though the effort of emptying everything out of the rooms concerned and then putting it all back was exhausting. But I'm glad I did it, as the house looks really fresh and ready for Spring.

My dear friend Meg is coming over from the States in June, and she jokingly told me that she expected to find the resort upgraded. Well it is and I can't wait to see her, as it has been almost 6 years since we last met in NY.

My garden continues to be a joy to me. My show auriculas are growing by the day, and several have flower buds on them. I've been taking them out during in the daytime and putting them back under glass at night. But soon they will be able to stay out in their "theatre". And the borders are awash with blue scillas and hellebores and the daphne scent on a still morning is just wonderful. I've planted a barrel of tatties, and rocket and lettuce are through in the vegetable planters in the greenhouse. And I have pots of things to go out into the beds once all risk of frost is over, verbena bonariensis, three types of ornamental grasses, violets, hardy geraniums etc, etc. So hopefully it will all look fabulous in high summer.

I'll try and get round some other blogs this week, as I want to see how everyone is doing. Photos are of the garden and a birch down by the river.

Lissie

2010-03-20T22:46:00.001Z

My latest favourite song. The whole EP is beautiful. Be back soon......

Snow

2010-03-15T13:36:00.009Z

This is a draft I wrote at the weekend. It will explain what I'm up to at present.
I hope you are doing well.

Snow

for Nieves

I’ve pruned the roses, cut back herbaceous
shoots and stems and planted primulas in pots,
so you can see a little colour from the window
when you get home. Now I’m on my knees,
with a knife, scraping weeds from pavers.

Dandelion, couch grass and yellow-flowered
oxalis, till fingers find a tiny, hairy seedling
that my eyes identify as comfrey, knit-bone,
and I smile, because it seems a good omen, as if
this life is still willing to give you what you need.

Miles away in that hospital bed you are a flightless,
featherless, gawky baby bird; secondary growth excised,
two new titanium branch lines shoring up your spine.

You once said your name means snow in Spanish.
Well it can only be the kind of snow that falls
high above the tree line, up on the sierras and picos.
Powdery and dazzling - snow at its best.
Snow that persists.

Ruth's Diary by Fiona Robyn

2010-02-25T13:48:00.005Z

Sorry for my continued absence. I've just got a lot of things to contend with at present. FIL coming to stay, decorator starting work today, etc, etc. But I did agree to take take part in Fiona's amazing Blogsplash, so here goes..........

(PS this was drafted on the 25th, but posted on 1 March as agreed.)

Ruth's diary is the new novel by Fiona Robyn, called Thaw. She has decided to blog the novel in its entirety over the next few months, so you can read it for free.

Ruth's first entry is below, and you can continue reading tomorrow here.

These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It's a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as if we're being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded wings. And you can see her insides.

The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and folding. Her veins look as though they're stuck to the outside of her hands. They're a colour that's difficult to describe: blue, but also silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the world.

I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I'm giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don't think I'm alone in wondering whether it's all worth it. I've seen the look in people's eyes. Stiff suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave, reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I've heard the weary grief in my dad's voice.

So where do I start with all this? What do you want to know about me? I'm Ruth White, thirty-two years old, going on a hundred. I live alone with no boyfriend and no cat in a tiny flat in central London. In fact, I had a non-relationship with a man at work, Dan, for seven years. I'm sitting in my bedroom-cum-living room right now, looking up every so often at the thin rain slanting across a flat grey sky. I work in a city hospital lab as a microbiologist. My dad is an accountant and lives with his sensible second wife Julie, in a sensible second home. Mother finished dying when I was fourteen, three years after her first diagnosis. What else? What else is there?

Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. I looked at her hands for twelve minutes. It was odd describing what I was seeing in words. Usually the picture just sits inside my head and I swish it around like tasting wine. I have huge books all over my flat; books you have to take in both hands to lift. I've had the photo habit for years. Mother bought me my first book, black and white landscapes by Ansel Adams. When she got really ill, I used to take it to bed with me and look at it for hours, concentrating on the huge trees, the still water, the never-ending skies. I suppose it helped me think about something other than what was happening. I learned to focus on one photo at a time rather than flicking from scene to scene in search of something to hold me. If I concentrate, then everything stands still. Although I use them to escape the world, I also think they bring me closer to it. I've still got that book. When I take it out, I handle the pages as though they might flake into dust.

Mother used to write a journal. When I was small, I sat by her bed in the early mornings on a hard chair and looked at her face as her pen spat out sentences in short bursts. I imagined what she might have been writing about; princesses dressed in star-patterned silk, talking horses, adventures with pirates. More likely she was writing about what she was going to cook for dinner and how irritating Dad's snoring was.

I've always wanted to write my own journal, and this is my chance. Maybe my last chance. The idea is that every night for three months, I'll take one of these heavy sheets of pure white paper, rough under my fingertips, and fill it up on both sides. If my suicide note is nearly a hundred pages long, then no-one can accuse me of not thinking it through. No-one can say; 'It makes no sense; she was a polite, cheerful girl, had everything to live for', before adding that I did keep myself to myself. It'll all be here. I'm using a silver fountain pen with purple ink. A bit flamboyant for me, I know. I need these idiosyncratic rituals; they hold things in place. Like the way I make tea, squeezing the tea-bag three times, the exact amount of milk, seven stirs. My writing is small and neat; I'm striping the paper. I'm near the bottom of the page now. Only ninety-one more days to go before I'm allowed to make my decision. That's it for today. It's begun.

Continue reading tomorrow here...

Checking In

2010-02-10T13:55:00.003Z

Sorry I've not been around, life just keeps getting in the way at present. I've been listening to lots of radio as I get on with other things. I particulary enjoyed Start The Week this week on Radio 4, programme information is here. It actually developed into a brilliant discussion about human beings need for hope, and how the theatre is possibily the only place that is currently tackling issues like economics and faith - things which to my mind are becoming increasing indivisible.

I've got three photo projects upon the latest brilliant issue of Mung Being, which has the theme of secrets. Here is one

And here's another

Off out into the sunshine now while it lasts. This is about my garden in early Spring.

Garden Flight

You’re back, nervous as a fawn
on the edge of a clearing, ready
to run should the wind change
and carry my scent.

It’s a tentative show, hellebores,
crocus, a few purple twigs of daphne,
but already there’s a strong suggestion
of what might be.

Fixing things

2010-01-31T13:52:00.008Z

I've been busy organising a spate of mini repairs around the house - new taps for the bath, as the old original ones finally gave up the ghost, booking a painter to come and paint our bedroom, my time of shinning up ladders to paint 15' high ceilings is over I'm afraid, buying and fitting a new loo seat, so that you don't feel like you risk a giant clam bite every time you go for a pee!

I must admit it feels good to get these things fixed - funny how you can thole something for ages, and then all of a sudden your patience just snaps.

In the last couple of weeks I've had two meetings with poetry friends. One was a lovely walk round the Botanic Gardens, with lunch in the new building at the West Gate and a good blether about poetry and future plans, including a public reading we hope to do in the Spring.

The other was joining a new mini critique group, with two completely new friends. We hope to keep this going once a month for the foreseeable future - and if the first one is anything to go by I think it will be really worthwhile. The three of us seemed to click right away and had a wonderful time sharing ideas and talking poets that we like and admire. I think it is good to shake yourself out of your comfort zone and try something completely new once in a while and I'm really looking forward to our next meeting.

This is a busy week - tomorrow morning I'm at the launch of "Carry A Poem" and then on Tuesday I have a meeting of my local group pm and at night the joint launch of three pamphlets, including "Collection Point", the group anthology edited by Judith Stewart and me, that Colin played a big part in helping us to get printed.

This morning was an early start to watch Andy Murray not quite pull it off against Federa. I think he lost the match in his head as much as anywhere. I hope he shakes the "last British man to win a major" hoodoo one of these days.

The photo of this wreck of a Scimitar, that I saw on a walk past a farm yesterday, shows that even when your are totally ravaged good bone structure still counts - like Richard Harris or Peter O'Toole!

Here I am

2010-01-25T19:45:00.006Z

News on friends continues to be heart-breaking, as my dear N had bad news with her latest MRI. I just hate the fact that she has to go yet another round with this disease, and seeing what the news does to her and family. Sometimes life just asks far too much of those we love.

Today I spent the afternoon in the garden, it is the only place my head stays clear at present, as I meander from one job to the next. Today I spread ash, from my neighbour's wood-burning stove, around under my fruit trees. I did it last year too, and it seemed to really boost the crop.
And then I cut back the stalks of perennial things. The place has a bare look to it, especially after the disappearance of all the snow. At this time of year it is hard to believe it will ever be the mad plant-packed space it is in June.

Tomorrow I'm going to sow some seeds into Jiffy compost pots in the propagator. I always find this soothing, the tiny capsules cupped in my hand, shaking them into damp compost, the labelling, the smell of wet earth, the anticipation.........

This is This Mortal Coil, with a Tim Buckley song, Song to the Siren - I find it beautiful.

"Carry a poem'

2010-01-20T13:42:00.002Z

Edinburgh’s annual City of Literature reading campaign will give away thousands of free books & poetry pocketcards, and there’ll be a month of poetry events. I'm really excited about being involved with this great project and I can't wait to get a copy of the Carry a Poem book, which will be launched next week.

If you are interested my on-line entry is here. It is a great website , so if you do look be prepared to lose and hour or two!

Thaw

2010-01-18T12:42:00.007Z

The snow is all but gone, the pond has defrosted and the fieldfare has left for pastures new.

Yesterday I started my annual cleaning out of the greenhouse, and began by washing all the algae off the glass, to let in the maximum amount of light. My auriculas seem to have come through to cold spell pretty well, probably due to the fact that I kept them on the dry side in good gritty compost. I hope they will now start to put on some growth, as I can't wait to put them out on the "theatre" that I've created for them.

Last week I did some still life work with camera. I like to collect old kitchen utensils, potato ricers etc, etc and I had an idea for using this 1950 aluminium sieve/colander thingy. One shot from the session has since been accepted by the e-zine Mung Being, so I'll link it once it is up there.

And we went to see "Sex, Drugs and Rock &Roll" - the film about Ian Dury. I've always loved his lyrics and this biopic is brilliantly done, Andy Serkis is Dury. It's well worth a look if your sick of the usual cinema fare.

I'm also getting hooked on the Beeb's new series of Wallander. I didn't like it first time around, preferring the Swedish series with subtitles. I wouldn't say the plots are great, sometimes it is just Bergerac with schnapps, but I do like those big gloomy landscapes.

This is Emily Barker's "Nostalgia", which is the theme tune to the series.

"Cancer is no longer a question of life or death"

2010-01-11T13:20:00.006Z

Finally someone has something to say about living after cancer treatment. The piece on Woman's Hour today was excellent, it mentioned the fatigue, chemobrain/the cognitive effects, gastric problems, heart problems etc.

Don't get me wrong - the alternative isn't great, but some guidance on how to recognise long term effects of potent treatments would be very welcome, especially when most of us are constantly tuning into bodies that have already let us down.

Also welcome Barbara Ehrenreich's latest book, Smile or Die, which "confronts the insistence on positive thinking and blind optimism endemic in American society. She argues that a culture of relentless cheerfulness and the misguided belief that optimism can influence outcomes has had a negative impact on business, religion, academia, and even medicine. Barbara Ehrenreich looks at a corporate culture where positive thinking has replaced job security and argues that unquestioning optimism was in no small part to blame for the financial crisis."

Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World is published by Granta.

If you know someone who has just been diagnosed please don't immediately ram the "be positive" message down their throats, they need space to assimilate the information, and they are also entitled to grieve for their prior life and self.

Reasons to be cheerful four and half

2010-01-10T15:44:00.011Z

I'm writing this for me. It is just a list of things I'm glad to have experienced these last few weeks and days:

Staying up late and watching The Deer Hunter again. God they all looked so young.

Watching The Secret Life of Bees - even though this film wasn't a great critical success I was interested in the character of May Boatwright. I think the creation of a personal "wailing wall" is something we all need from time to time.

Also coming across the TV show Nurse Jackie - Edie Falco is fabulous in it and the script is sharp and witty. I'm recording the whole series, and I can't wait for the next episode.

Seeing the Margaret Watkins "Forgotten Woman" exhibition at the Hidden Lane Gallery in Glasgow. Talking to the gallery owner about this exhibition and his next one, on the artist Hilda Goldwag, was a treat. He plans to do a whole series of exhibitions on women whose work has been over-looked or forgotten.

Having lunch in the Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed Willow Tea Rooms and then walking past his masterpiece - the Glasgow School of Art. A friend and I made the trip on a day when all the world was saying, "only travel if you have to" and while the pavements were like skating rinks the air frost in the trees, as seen from the bus on the way over, was worth the trip alone.

Seeing that the curlers have ignored the naysayers and gone ahead with an unofficial Bon Spiel. If life is not about taking calculated risk then I'm not sure what is about. (BTW it's not a cold snap -Radio 5 have dubbed it, "quantative freezing" and I agree with them!

We still have snow, but it feels a bit milder today, evidenced by the fact that the bird bath has water in it again and not ice. My weather diary is now in its second year and already it is interesting to look back - this time last year the winter aconites were through, no such luck this year.....

Some shorties that have occured to me over the piece/peace.

sheep in snow
so many shades of white

air frost –
trailed by my breath-self
and a single set of prints

heron ousts cormorant
cormorant ousts heron
channels yield to ice

blackbird lunges, thrush parries
another January day gnaws
at family ties

Emma Curran

2010-01-09T12:00:00.003Z

See her full story on her myspace page But basically she is a young Scots girl plucked from the crowd by Snow Patrol to sing "Set Fire to the Third Bar" at their NY gig in 2007. They liked her performance so much they asked her to reprise the number with them at King Tut's in Glasgow. She's now making an album, as well as finishing her nursing degree.

I wish her lots of luck. She sounds a lovely girl.

Baby it's cold outside

2010-01-05T16:15:00.009Z

Well I'm happy to back, having hopped,skipped and jumped over the "Festive Season"."The weather outside is frightful" as the song says, but I'm enjoying the white-out and the sense of isolation and muffled quiet that it brings to everything.

And as is common when we get easterly weather sweeping in off the steppes we are getting a number of interesting visiting birds, I've had fieldfares in the garden, stripping the remains of the rosehips, and cormorants and goosanders have been driven up from the frozen estuary onto the deeper water of the river inland. One of the photos here is of an almost Japanese print-like shot of one of these cormorants trying to dry his wings. The other two are of cardoon seedheads, in the artichoke family, covered in snow, and icicles hanging down below one of the town's bridges.

I think we are heading for the coldest winter I've known since I was young girl and I'm dreading how many plants might get snuffed out in the garden - although they will create welcome spaces for new things.

Meanwhile I'm happily using the time indoors to have a clear out, the older I get the more minimalist I get, and today I spent a happy hour up a step ladder pulling out part of the bookcase and reorganising my poetry, photography and gardening sections. Although I have to confess I spent more time reading than tidying.

I've also had a great time reading Calder Wood Press' catalogue of pamphlets, so that I can give Colin a bit of help on the website, though to be honest he doesn't really need it, as he has everything set up really efficiently.

I also sent Sally Evans a wee bit of video on her bee talk at the Callander Poetry Festival back in the autumn. I really enjoyed hearing her speak so knowledgably on the subject, and it has only increased my yen to have a hive, as well as some bantam hens. Sally has added it to an fantastic new section she has on her website, which is all about bees, click here

Oh and some RFA veterans have done a lovely tribute to my grandfather, see here

Break

2009-12-15T13:41:00.005Z

I've decided to take a break from life on line, at least until the turn of the year.
I'm not entirely sure why, I just know I feel overloaded with words, opinions and images etc, and a digital fast or retreat feels like a good way of cleansing my head and spirit for the prospect of a new year.

Andrei Arshavin, Arsenal's Russian striker, does a Shhh celebration whenever he scores a goal. And when he's asked why he does this he simply replies, Shhh

So here, with love, is a little piece of Shhh from me.

See you the other side of the year.

The Piano Creeps

2009-12-08T15:45:00.001Z

featuring Mary Lorson - she really should be a big star by now. This is just about the light level here!

Big tides

2009-12-08T12:10:00.006Z

The beach on Friday, although much good did it do me, as the lurgy is back again. I just can't seem to shake it off, so I'm taking it easy to give my poor old immune system a chance.

The other shot is the dog taking a high-level leak.

Bit of a Sophie Calle experience

2009-12-04T16:33:00.004Z

Or rather it is the reverse of a Sophie Calle experience. I am getting e-mail for someone with my name, but, judging by the mail's content, a whole different life from mine.

She is younger, with a new baby, has just bought a house and has joined a mother and baby group. I don't know where the error is in her e-mail address, and I'm not keen to reply to any of the messages I'm getting, so the stuff just keeps on coming. It is all a bit weird.

one dot omitted

and a voyeur receives

the perfect gift

And just to expand on the Calle element why not tell me about your own strangest virtual identity crisis?

Morrissey

2009-11-29T14:48:00.004Z

I loved Morrissey on Desert Island Discs today. I feel like I've finally grown up when people like him are the subject. Although conversely I like the fact that he is still very much a Peter Pan, who refuses to play in this crazy world of ours.

See his eight records here.

Funny how things come along in twos, like buses, because I've also been watching a documentary film on Warhol, another of my fascinations, and one of Morrissey's choices, Nico see below, also featured there. The documentary also made me think what a great job Sienna Miller did in the film about Edie Sedgwick.

I would love to get to Pittsburg to see the Warhol Museum. He made a box up at the end of each day to hold all the bits and pieces of the day's events, and the museum has them all on a vast rack of shelving. One box is simply marked, "mother died".

Lost Few Days

2009-11-26T09:45:00.007Z

I've had some lurgy for the last ten days, I can't call it flu, as I'm not willing to submit myself to the sea of viruses that is the GP's waiting room. But I think I am starting to revive, if only by virtue of the drop in my coughing fits.

I can't believe that it will be December next week and as usual I have little desire to do the whole Christmas thing - if I could I'd buy a ticket to some off season hot spot and disappear until March.

But I did make some progress on the garden before I got ill, having bought some incredible show auriculas from the wonderful Alison at Angus Plants. They have fantastic names like "Cinnamon" , "Baggage", and "Snowy Owl".

Mine are all potted up in gritty compost in a cool greenhouse, waiting to go out on my new "auricula theatre" which I made from an old set of oak shelves I bought at a jumble sale, and which the lovely Jamie, my new 6'4" handy man, put up for me on the shed wall. (I really regret the dearth of men with power tools in this family - I blame my mother for taking me to see 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, it left me thinking I'd marry into a family who would be able to whip up a barn before lunch.)

And I have my seed order from the amazing Plant World Seeds nursery. They have some wonderful things, including rare wild S. American seeds that do well here. I'm planning to grow lots of grasses, as I love their movement, and how good they look when frosted.

Next week I have to submit myself to N's make-over plans for me, she want to supervise me buying an outfit to wear to the dinner for the launch of the National Galleries anthology. It will end in tears..........

And a couple of wee things:

you left a gap in the world today
the colour of a blue November noon

no more palmate leaves
no more sticky sap for bees
no more waxy candles in June

goodbye old friend,
this late in the year
we need light

--------

walking in sharp November light
carrying my fog within

Yours

Crabbit Annie

Poetry Junkie

2009-11-15T16:15:00.004Z

I went along to Kevin Cadwallender's launch of his pamphlet Dog Latin last week. It has been published by Calder Wood Press, and contains a wonderful selection of pieces. If you want to sample some of Kevin's work see here:

I also met Crafty Green Poet at the gig, which was lovely, as I've enjoyed her blog for some time now.

After that Anne and I scooted up to the School of Poets class at the Scottish Poetry Library, and Kevin jokingly called us a couple of poetry junkies. There are worse things in life to be me thinks..........

On Wednesday I went to fashion show that my friend N's daughter-in-law helped organise, she's a designer and lecturer at Glasgow School of Art. The show reworked charity shop clothes into high fashion and it was really well done, with goody bags and an after show party.

And Friday I saw a Japanese friend and we went to see the Scott and Shackelton photographic exhibition at the Queens Gallery Herbert Ponting shots from the ill-fated Scott expedition are absolutely stunning.

Now I have a bad cold, something I always seem to get when I'm exposed to lots of people, I just don't have any resistance to things any more. So I'm lying low and living on lemsip.

The photo is of some of the gilding on the door of the Queens Gallery - horse chesnut leaves and flowers. Here in my home town they had to chop a massive old one down this week, as it was diseased and had a number of deep wounds on it limbs. Seeing the huge gap it has left behind made me think of this Niedecker poem:

My Friend Tree
by Lorine Niedecker

My friend tree
I sawed you down
but I must attend
an older friend
the sun

Great Great etc Uncle Patrick Henry

2009-11-05T15:52:00.014Z

Colin Will has been clearing out some of his poetry books to give himself more room and to raise money for the RNLI. I "bought" three, including James Tate's Selected Poems and this poem spoke to me, because for those of us from hard-working peasant stock I'm not sure that it helps to know that six generation of your family were dirt poor. The fact that they survived as best they could, against the odds, to allow you to be here today is all you can be grateful for.

The narrator of this poem sounds like an arrogant teenager and they are never impressed with anything their parents, let alone their forebearers have done, but sometimes something a parent says will stick and you return to it years later. I think Tate may also be saying that history is usually written by the winners.

Great Great Uncle etc Patrick Henry

There's a fortune to be made in just about everything
in this country, somebody's father had to invent
everything--baby food, tractors, rat poisoning.
My family's obviously done nothing since the beginning
of time. They invented poverty and bad taste
and getting by and taking it from the boss.
O my mother goes around chewing her nails and
spitting them in a jar: You shouldn't be ashamed
of yourself she says, think of your family.
My family I say what have they ever done but
paint by numbers the most absurd and disgusting scenes
of plastic squalor and human degradation.
Well then think of your great great etc.
Uncle Patrick Henry.

My grandfather is our family's equivalent of Uncle Patrick Henry, and I have recently discovered that the Imperial War Museum now has a synopsis of his recordings with them, so if you think you have lived read on:

"10786
CATALOGUE NUMBER
NAME:
Hood, David Linley Smith

DESCRIPTION:

British private served with 2nd Bn Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on Western Front, 1915-1916; served as officer's batman with Headquarters, Fourth Army in France, 1916; served as aircraftsman with 2 Royal Flying Corps Repair Depot in France, 1916-1918; served as engineer aboard RFA Cairndale in Atlantic, 1939-1941 including sinking, 30/5/1941; served as chief engineer aboard RFA Gray Ranger in North Sea and Arctic, 1941-1942 including sinking 22/9/1942; served aboard RFA Dingledale in Atlantic, Mediterranean and Far East, 1942-1945

NOTES:
REEL 1 Background in Falkirk and Glasgow, 1898-1914: family; education; employment. Aspects of enlistment and training with Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in GB, 1914-1915: background to (underage) enlistment, 8/1914; failure of friend's father to get him out of the army,; reception at Stirling Castle; training in Plymouth, 1914-1915; interest of Lady Astor in troops; how he was befriended by experienced soldier. REEL 2 Continues: crossing to France, 3/1915; different regimental marching rates. Recollections of operations as private with 2nd Bn Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on Western Front, 1915-1916: joining B Coy; orders to move into front line at Loos; manning front line; burial parties; first use of gas masks; affected by own gas, late 1915; mining and counter mining; attachment to Royal Engineers mining company. REEL 3 Continues: alert for German spies; narrow escape from group of Middlesex Regiment troops looking for spies; listening post duties with canary; his rescue from asphyxiation in mine; sight of unit casualties from Festubert during hospitalisation; effects of sudden thaw, 3/1916; incident in which he was under shellfire. Aspects of period as officer's batman with Headquarters, Fourth Army in France, 1916: appointment as officer's batman; sight of Prince of Wales; his officer's duties at headquarters; attitude towards luxury at headquarters. REEL 4 Continues: background to transfer to Royal Flying Corps; plans for post-war employment; story of what happened to his commanding officer from 1916; leave in Scotland; news of death of relative on Western Front. Aspects of period as aircraftsman with 2 Royal Flying Corps Repair Depot in France, 1916-1918: training as mechanic; types of aircraft worked on; contact with aces; obtaining parts of Von Richtofen's aircraft; capabilities of Royal Flying Corps aircraft; memories of the 'Mad Major'; news of Armistice, 11/11/1918; further details of aces. Aspects of demobilisation and return to civilian life, from 1919: demobilisation, 1/1919; obtaining marine engineering employment on Clydeside, 1919. REEL 5 Continues: apprenticeship on Clydeside, 1919; post-war interest in British Legion; his political opinions after First World War. Reflections on service with 2nd Bn Argyll of Sutherland Highlanders on Western Front, 1915-1916: problems of lice in kilts; case of soldier arrested for desertion.

Recollections of operations as engineer aboard RFA Cairndale in Atlantic, 1939- 1941 including sinking 30/5/1941: his position with Royal Fleet Auxiliary; transport disruption, 2/9/1939; problems joining ship in Glasgow, 3/9/1939. REEL 6 Continues: convoy to Freetown, 9/1939; oiling duties in Freetown; last sight of HMS Jervis Bay leaving Freetown; electrical storms in Freetown, late 1939; problems with barnacles at Freetown; return to GB via Caribbean, early 1940; problems getting hospital treatment for wife; attachment of oiler to Force H in Gibraltar; previous experience of oiling HMS Ark Royal during her trials; attempt to decoy Scharnhorst, 4/1941; rescue of survivors of sunken merchantman. REEL 7 Continues: news of wife's death, 5/1941; belief of wife's Scandinavian relations that Germans would win the war in 1939; wife's escape from Denmark to GB early during the Second World War; second attempt to decoy Scharnhorst, 5/1941; preparations for emergency at sea; torpedoing of ship; abandoning ship; rescue of survivors; return to Gibraltar, 31/5/1941; return to GB. REEL 8 Continues: character of Glasgow's Ghost Train; his declining to give up berth to female US officer. Recollections of operations as chief engineer aboard RFA Gray Ranger in North Sea and Arctic, 1941-1942 including sinking, 22/9/1942: joining ship; sea trials; instructing US personnel in oiling, autumn 1941; plan to interfere with German shipping off Norway; his opinion of Polish forces; prior recollections of pre-war exercises in Bemuda. REEL 9 Continues: joining Convoy PQ17, summer 1942; collision with iceberg; orders to return to GB for repairs; fitting of new bows in North Shields; joining Convoy PQ18; fate of Convoy PQ18; start of return Convoy QP14; plan for ship to break from convoy for Scapa Flow; torpedoing of ship by U-435, 22/9/1942; provisions in ship's lifeboat and preparations for emergency. REEL 10 Continues: abandoning ship and rescue by HMS Northern Gem; return of survivors to GB; provision of public lunch for survivors in Glasgow; condition he was in on his return from Arctic; his opinion of wartime decorations and awards; conversation with newly appointed officer in charge of oiling at the Admiralty. Aspects of operations as chief engineer aboard RFA Dingledale in Atlantic, Mediterranean and Far East, 1942-1945: joining ship in Glasgow; oiling work of West African coast; contact with civilians in West Africa; arrival in Tokyo Bay, Japan. REEL 11 Continues: state of Hiroshima, Japan; Japanese preparations for naval defence of Kure; opinion of Japanese; participation in North African landings, 1943; second hand story of torpedoed San Demetrio and his encounter with the tanker's second officer; work oiling HMS Ajax; rescue of casks of unfermented wine from Algiers harbour."

The photo is of Trois Arbres Military Cemetery where my great,great uncle Andrew is buried. My grandfather had to read the telegram message about Andrew's death to his paternal grandmother, as she was illiterate.

Projects

2009-11-01T15:38:00.005Z

Yesterday I had a really lazy day as I felt pretty tired having been out and about the two previous days.

On Friday I was at the launch of the National Galleries for Scotland "Get Inspired Get Writing" anthology, which showcases the work of the winning entries of the last two years, including my own poem "Life Class". I was really pleased to discover that the introduction is by Janice Galloway, a real heroine of mine - I saw her speak a couple of years ago on Edward Lear at Stanza and it was one of the best things I've ever heard. But the best bit is that she mentions my poem, which is just a huge thrill. I attach a couple of photos of the book.

After that I went on to a friend's event, which was a quiz night in aid of a Scottish youth charity. I was on a team with some former colleagues and we had a great night, although we didn't win. But the names of the quiz teams were hilarious -my favourite was "Quiz Team Aguilera"

On Thursday my friend A. and I did a wee bit of work on a collaborative project that we hope to see published in the Spring, and then we had a lovely walk in the grounds of the National Museum of Modern Art - again I attach a few shots here of the grounds, a Barbara Hepworth piece and a new installation, that says in lights "There Will Be No Miracles Here" - I've frame it against some city church spires.

It's been a great few days, although the down side has been hearing that a friend who went through treatment with me has had a recurrence to her bones and another good friend is dealing with her son having just been diagnosed as bi-polar. I sent this particular friend a poem I've just written and she replied saying she is claiming it for herself as, "it captures how I feel impeccably" - and that means more than anything else to me.

Favourite bits

2009-10-30T15:51:00.003Z

Sorry I'm not around, I'm working on a few projects - but hope to get back "here" at the weekend.

Meanwhile here is a few bits of video of my year so far, my SIL's 50th, some shots of Lewis, the harvest, North Berwick, Edinburgh, Munch, the "big garden" Cottage borders that I help plan and layout last winter and this Spring, Sally Evans' bees, waterfalls etc, etc.

Indigo Girls

2009-10-21T11:44:00.006+01:00

I can't wait for tomorrow night to see the Indigo Girls. While I like and love a lot of music written by younger people it is really good to be able to hear lyrics written by women of your own age.

Today I'm looking at prints of pictures that I've just got back to try and decide which ones to get backed/mounted for a competition. I hate this stage of the process, because I'm my own worst critic and half the time I just pick the shots to pieces and lose heart. But this time I need to decide right away and then get them off to the framers, otherwise I'm going to miss the deadline.

Last night I went to see Janet Paisley in Edinburgh. She was reading with some Ukrainian academics who have translated one of her collections and a novel into their language. It was an interesting to hear the Ukrainians speak about the act of translation, and about how poetry and humour are essential requirements in this mixed-up, beat-up old world of ours. We also noticed that their poetry books are printed in a small diary like style, which they said was standard there, as it saved on "resources" and also meant that they could be easily transported and read on the bus or tube. Maybe we should give the format a whirl here, it might boost poetry sales.

And N has mentioned to me that her good friend Flick is writing a blog called, "Cancer Travels" - if you can please look in, as she is an inspiring woman, who is not lying down to the disease. Her blog is here .

Meanwhile here's the girls with some middle-aged angst:

Poems and things

2009-10-16T11:56:00.007+01:00

I have a couple of things that have just been published on-line.

Two poems here at the amazing la fovea. Read their manifesto, it is a really interesting new way of getting work out there. And big thank you to Holly Anderson for suggesting me.

And one here at Mungbeing

Yesterday I had a perfect autumn day with two fairly new friends. I showed them round my garden and was amazed that they were amazed at my gardening knowledge, which I tend to just accept as normal and everyday. I then took them to one of my favourite beaches, which is a sort of open secret here in East Lothian. It has a castle on a cliff, a tiny harbor hewn out of solid rock and the Bass Rock off shore. It's the sort of place you could imagine Enid Blyton basing a Famous Five book on.

I'm also quietly developing my obsession with huts with the aid of this site, Shedworking, which it devoted to all things small and temporary. Sometimes I think I missed my calling in life........

Posted Missing

2009-10-11T13:48:00.009+01:00

Sorry I'm not posting, I find I'd rather be outdoors using my hands at the moment. I think the new pond has inspired me, and with my son's help I've given the garden a major overhaul, putting down 2 tons of new gravel on the paths, including the greenhouse, and clearing some areas and planting some new things.

I also feel a low level of unease,even with devolution,as the UK drifts inexorably towards another Tory Government.

And I hate how gullible we seem to be about a two-party system which allows one party to stay in power long after it has run out of steam and then switches wholesale to the other lot again, expecting something better.

David Cameron is just the Tony Blair of 1997. I bet he'll even be spouting on about "A New Dawn" any day now! This morning the radio had a hilarious sketch comparing politicians speeches to the lyrics of musicals, including High School Musical, which
has Osbourne's favourite line about us all being "in this together"!

Yesterday in Edinburgh there was a march to celebrate a demonstration and march 100 years ago by Scottish women seeking the vote. I wonder what they would make of our progress and the issues we currently face?

My new hero is Helen MacArthur, the round the world yachtswoman, who has said that
she now intends to stay on dry land and try and live as sustainably as she does at sea. She spent some time on the islands of South Georgia, seeing at first had our impact on the environment and the plight of some of the wildlife, not least the albatross, and it made her vow to move on to this new challenge.

I know it is really hard to take the long view of life when you are trying to pay the mortgage, feed the kids and clear up cat sick, but unless we each start looking at how we each live our lives I fear this game is already a bogie.

Politicians and endless legislation, which is often unenforceable, because we are not prepared to pay the price of policing or administering it, are only part of the solution, and more often than not the biggest part of the problem.

I watched the BBC 4 series on technology, about a family going back to live with 1970s technology,and I was amazed to learn that this family of five had something like 6 televisions, two computers and 4 laptops. I can see the need for laptops, but the number of TVs amazed me.

This slump is the result of a loss of confidence in consumerism, it would be good if recovery was seen to be something more than just getting us to flex our plastic again - not that some of us could ever afford to flex it much in the first place.

OK, mump and sermon over!

I see the Indigo Girls next week, this is a favourite song of theirs that I sing when digging:

Clearing webs from the hovel
A blistered hand on the handle of a shovel
Ive been digging too deep
I always do
I see my face on the surface
I look a lot like narcissus
A dark abyss of an emptiness
Standing on the edge of a drowning blue

I look behind my ears for the green
And even my sweat smells clean
Glare off the white hurts my eyes
I gotta get out of bed
Get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands
Not just my head
I think myself in a jail
Now I know a refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand
And a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth
If you want a rose

I had a lot of good intentions
Sit around for fifty years
And then collect a pension
Started seeing the road to hell
And just where it starts
But my life is more than a vision
The sweetest part is acting
After making a decision
Started seeing the whole
As a sum of its parts

And I look behind my ears for the green
And even my sweat smells clean
Glare off the white hurts my eyes
Gotta get out of bed
Get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands
Not just my head
I think myself in a jail
Now I know a refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand
And a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth
If you want a rose

My life is part of the global life
Id found myself becoming more immobile
When Id think a little girl in the world
Cant do anything
A distant nation my community
And a street person my responsibility
If I have a care in the world
I have a gift to bring

I look behind my ears for the green
Even my sweat smells clean
Glare off the white hurts my eyes
I gotta get out of bed
Get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands
Not just my head
I think myself in a jail
Now I know a refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand
And a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth
If you want a rose

Kite Skier

2009-10-03T15:46:00.005+01:00

I was looking at some Harris pictures today and this popped out at me, I suppose because it is blowing a gale here right now. I used the Lensbaby to get the shot and cross-processed it - I like the watery effect, I hope you do.

And I caught a late night programme on Scott Walker and was reminded of this song, which I've not listened to for years

Picture Post

2009-10-01T20:00:00.006+01:00

I'm a bit lost for words at present. Every once in a while you need to get down to sorting out the dross of life, and I'm doing quite a lot of that at present, so I've not been feeling very communicative or creative.

Our telephone line upped and died last week and we had to get the telecoms man out to fix it. It turned out to be the line coming into the house from a pole three gardens away, and the whole lot had to be replaced. The guy wasn't sure if the line had been accidentally snipped by the neighbour's tree surgeon or whether it was just fair wear and tear.

Then the boiler decided to play up, which it does most years when the mercury suddenly dips, and we woke up to no heating or hot water, and I had to hang around waiting for next repair man.

In between I've been to Glasgow to help my MIL unpack some more things from storage. She is upset because it looks like the auction house which sold some of her furniture has gone belly up in the recession, without paying her for some of the things they sold for her. She's finding it all very upsetting, and that isn't helping her dementia. We're just trying to be sanguine about it, on the basis that we would have had to pay for storage had it not gone for auction, and that it would have cost a fortune to truck it somewhere else to be sold.

On the upside the TV company gave me a small cheque for the pond project, so I've bought a new wheelbarrow, which is light and well balanced, so I should be able to push it around more easily than the old one, which had a flat tyre and was about as old and clapped out as me! And I've been planting some hardy perennial seeds, grasses and verbena bonariensis, to over-winter in the greenhouse and plant out next year. I'm also going to get a ton of beach gravel delivered to top up paths - a job for my son, but I haven't told him yet so shhhh.....

I also did a really good workshop with Janet Paisley down in Hawick on Saturday, as part of the Eildon Tree 10 year birthday celebrations. She was funny and warm and gave us a couple of excellent exercise to do. And the drive down, through the autumn Borders countryside, was wonderful.

These are two photographs I took yesterday, when I just grabbed the camera and headed for the hills -as I just needed some fresh air and space to clear my head. I really love black and white, and this time of year seems to suit it. The sky was really wild up there, and the light was going, but I quite like the moody darkness.

Emily D

2009-09-30T13:28:00.001+01:00

Something to savour until I can get a post together:

A single Screw of Flesh
Is all that pins the Soul
That stands for Deity, to Mine,
Upon my side the Veil --

Once witnessed of the Gauze --
Its name is put away
As far from mine, as if no plight
Had printed yesterday,

In tender -- solemn Alphabet,
My eyes just turned to see,
When it was smuggled by my sight
Into Eternity --

More Hands -- to hold -- These are but Two --
One more new-mailed Nerve
Just granted, for the Peril's sake --
Some striding -- Giant -- Love --

So greater than the Gods can show,
They slink before the Clay,
That not for all their Heaven can boast
Will let its Keepsake -- go

Saving the best 'til last

2009-09-21T20:23:00.004+01:00

I love September. today a friend and I walk in the Lammermuirs, where we spotted grouse and a bunch of guinea fowl that have gone native. Then we called in at the Pleasance to see the work I'd been involved in there and picked the last of the mulberries, as they were quite literally falling off the trees in front of our eyes.

This is a set of photos from my own garden, where things are really starting to colour up. Not a lot else to report on the Apprentice front, but sometimes it is good to just stop and stare.

Sweet

2009-09-16T14:03:00.006+01:00

A friend got a call from the library service yesterday, to say she would need to come in to help her son complete his request for a book or language course on Introductory Polish.

My friend was rather taken aback at this, as she had no idea that her ten year old boy had a yen to learn the language. So when he came home from school she asked him what it was all about.

Apparently the school have a buddying/mentor service where older pupils look out for new pupils during their first weeks. And L's boy has been asked to look after a five year old Polish boy, who speaks little or no English. So he thought he had better try and learn some basic Polish to help the wee boy, and had called in at the library on the way home!

L said when he told her she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The weather here has been glorious for three days running, so I've been harvesting my crops and taking lovely walks, while it lasts. I've also been putting in some Spring bulbs and wallflowers, to brighten up the front garden in the Spring and digging out some things from the back garden that have got too big for their boots - including a lovely inula that seeds itself around much too freely. And I've also been getting treatment on my neck and shoulder, which are rather stiff and sore, but responding to physio.

PS pond programme airs tonight, see here

Gap in my education

2009-09-12T17:15:00.004+01:00

I'm a member of the Scottish Poetry Library and regularly borrow books from their wonderful collection. I recently borrowed Jean Valentine's Door in the Mountain and I must admit to being completely blown away. I have never read any of her work before, but I find her style and use of language astounding and compelling.

Adrienne Rich says of her, "This is poetry of the highest order, because it lets us into spaces and meaning we couldn't approach in any other way. The known and familiar become one with the mysterious and half-wild, at the place where consciousness and the subliminal meet."

I particularly love this poem Inkwell daybreak

and

The Hawthorn Robin Mends With Thorns, which isn't on line, but begins:

Talking to Mary about 1972:
like a needle
through my 25-years-
older breast my years thinner rib....

If you get the chance read her work, you won't be disappointed. And take a closer look at her site on the link I provided, which includes readings and pdf's of some poems in this collection.

Review

2009-09-10T12:44:00.003+01:00

Nice things have been happening to me this last wee while, some which will bear fruit later on.

But one is right here, right now and that is Rachel Fox's kind and considered review of Heart Notes. I'm am really grateful to her for taking the time to write the piece and for her take on my poetry.

I'm just off the phone with a fellow poet who is at the "why bother" stage at present. I was able to tell her what she told me a few months ago, which is that it is a discipline and that there are always times of discouragement and you therefore need to learn to enjoy the occasional upside.

I'm very grateful to Rachel for providing me with this one - I will treasure it, as well as working hard to convert her to a love of roses.

September

2009-09-04T13:03:00.010+01:00

We've had terrible weather, the river was within a gnat's crotchet of bursting its banks last night. I'm so glad I no longer live on the floodplain!

I hope it is a better day tomorrow, as a friend and I are going up to Callander for the Poetry Scotland weekend. If I was a swallow I'd bugger off now......

and here's exhibit A:

Over her shoulder

2009-09-02T11:35:00.006+01:00

Recently a woman who had bought a copy of my series poem Peeling Onions came up to me at an event and said she didn't know whether to give it to her friend who was living with breast cancer as, "she just seems to have thrown cancer over her shoulder".

I didn't really know what to say to her, though I did privately wonder if she had actually asked the woman concerned if this is how she truly how felt.

I don't really talk about the disease that much myself these days, except when check ups/anniversaries come around, or to my two cancer buddies N & M, who both know what I'm talking about. But a couple of weeks ago I read an interview with Sarah Gabriel whose book Eating Pomegranates deals with "surviving" BRCA breast cancer (and yes there are several different kinds of the disease).

I want to quote this bit of the full interview, which is available on the clickable link, as it comes close to expressing my own experience with mood while in treatment:

"The volatility of mood that can come with cancer is not really talked about. I don't think I've done a very good job at being honest about that.

I tell her I think the truth is quite to the contrary. I stop short of saying that her caustic rage described in the book led to me dreading our meeting, and unsure about whether to meet her illness with hesitant delicacy or matter-of-fact acceptance.

Both approaches anger her at various points on the page. Sometimes it is a look from another mother on the school run - either real or imagined. Sometimes it is an attempt to chivvy her into optimism: "Be positive!" "Everything will be OK!" There are some shocking comments; for instance, from the woman who says that Gabriel's cancer might have been caused by the stress of deadlines (Gabriel is a freelance journalist) or the Jungian who talks about the "cancer personality". All in all, save for the kindly band of mothers who cooked for her and looked after her children, society as a whole comes across as pretty lacking: "Until going through it myself, I would have belonged to that wounding tribe of people I describe in my book who would have tried to be kind but have actually been in flight," she says (my emphasis). "Why is cancer still so scary, compared with heart disease or a broken leg? Why can we still not ask straightforward questions about it, and handle it, like other illnesses?"

Last night I found this poem, by Marilyn Hacker, in a book lent to me by a poet friend, and it goes out to all those I know who have come through the experience of cancer, even those who appear to have thrown it over the shoulder. Personally the only thing I ever throw over my shoulder is pointless regret and my prosthesis of an evening. (BTW a mastectomy bra is a great place to keep your i-pod, or camera lens cover and filters )

Invocation

This is for Elsa, also known as Liz,
an ample-bosomed gospel singer: five
discrete malignancies in one full breast.
This is for auburn Jacqueline, who is
celebrating fifty years alive,
one since she finished chemotherapy.
with fireworks on the fifteenth of July.
This is for June, whose words are lean and mean
as she is, elucidating our protest.
This is for Lucille, who shines a wide
beam for us with her dark cadences.
This is for long-limbed Maxine, astride
a horse like conscience. This is for Aline
who taught her lover how to caress the scar.
This is for Eve, who thought of AZT
while hopeful poisons pumped into a vein.
This is for Nanette in the Midwest.
This is for Alicia, shaking back dark hair,
dancing one-breasted with the Sabbath bride.
This is for Judy on a mountainside,
plunging her gloved hands in a glistening hive.
Hilda, Patricia, Gaylord, Emilienne,
Tania, Eunice: this is for everyone
who marks the distance on a calendar
from what's less likely each year to "recur."
Our saved-for-now lives are life sentences
- which we prefer to the alternative.

Where I roam

2009-08-31T11:25:00.013+01:00

At the weekend my husband and I walked part of the coastal path south of Pease Bay. This photo is an HDR shot, with a little "cross processing" applied. I've been visiting some other sites too and I have a short poem published today on A Handful of Stones. It was inspired by walking by a barley field and seeing all the wild flowers at the margin. Heartsease is our native form of the pansy, and seeing it always makes me smile.

I also treated myself to Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing, which contains a huge back catalogue of his poems, including Because of a Few Songs, which he has since turned into a song. If more men were to say, "Because of a few songs, wherein I spoke of their mystery, women have been exceptionally kind to my old age" I think we would probably forgive them anything. He is 75 in the next few weeks and his fans are making a massive photo mosaic for him using their own faces. If you want to take part - today is the last day to do so - just click on the link.

And the qarrtsiluni "economy edition" closes today. So thanks to everyone who submitted work to it, I think it is a strong issue. I really enjoyed working with my co-editor Pam Hart and I'm grateful that the experience put us in touch. So lots of thanks go to her too, and to Dave and Beth, who are both wonderful managing editors.

If you get the chance to edit an edition I can highly recommend the experience. Our closing piece and the final image will be posted later today.

Pond

2009-08-26T19:21:00.005+01:00

Last year I fell heir to an old galvanised tank and wanted to turn it into a pond, but I didn't have the muscle-power or the expertise to do it on my own, so I applied to BBC Scotland's gardening programme for some help - on the basis that I wanted to recycle the tank to create a better habitat for the frogs and toads that frequent my garden, who were having to make do with two old glazed water trough for their ablutions

I was really pleased and surprised when the programme's production company contacted me to say that they were willing to help. They came on Monday, with plants, liner and hard landscaping bits and pieces and a crew of five to help me make it happen. All I had to do was make lunch for us all and to pitch in and help at various stages of the work. I knew TV did a lot of takes, but it was really amazing to see how much they need to keep track of continuity between shots, and how much the poor sound man was picking up - including the mechanised street cleaning cart and the road works a quarter of a mile away!

It is obviously very late in the season for the plants and therefore they don't look like much now, but I have a mixture of native grasses and sedges, including the twisty form of juncus, as well as Japanese iris and Gunnera magellanica, the tiny Chilean cousin of that big beast of a plant, and a gorgeous water lily, that will not put in much of an appearance until next year.

We moved my water troughs over beside the new pond and in the process evicted this frog in one of the photos here. He kept going back to where they had been, and we found him looking at this old stone frog, which the old lady we bought the house from had in the garden, and I've never had the heart to throw out.

I'm really delighted with the results and I now have my morning cup of tea outside so I can enjoy seeing how it is bedding in. I've had my lymphodema sleeve on my arm for the two days since, but it was worth it! The crew even brought me some water from their own production garden at the Beechgrove, so that the water would immediately start to develop its own bio-diversity of wee beasties. And I hope to keep you all posted as it develops.

The programme airs on BBC Scotland on 16 September, when you can see me covered in mud and looking a complete fright!

Heap - but not Uriah

2009-08-25T12:35:00.002+01:00

Just for Now.

Report on my fab new pond to follow..........

Too many riches

2009-08-22T11:36:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was a perfect day.

In the morning I had complete peace to do a photo assignment in the house. It meant setting up my white board and photographing one of the small woolen blanket that my friend knits for the neo-natal unit in Edinburgh. I had great fun folding and refolding the thing to try and get the shot I wanted and then spent a happy time in Photoshop editing images and overlaying the text her concrete poem.

We hope they will be able to sell a postcard of it to raise more money for the unit. I'd show it here, but it is not my poem........

In the afternoon N, my Spanish friend, brought over B, her oldest friend, who is visiting from Bilbao, and we had a lovely time together, despite my poor Spanish and B's poor English.

I stayed with B in Bilbao once, and her apartment in an old part of the city is full of the most beautiful orchids. So she happily spent about an hour giving my few pathetic specimens a bit of much needed TLC and giving me hell for the state they were in. (I can grow anything outside or in the greenhouse, but houseplants rarely do well with me.)

And I love hearing N speaking Spanish, she seems to come to life.

This weekend I'm getting the garden ready for the big adventure on Monday, when a TV crew will come and help me build a pond, from an old zinc tank that I've acquired.

Hotch potch

2009-08-20T11:36:00.006+01:00

Sorry I've not been around, it has been a hectic week for me and my back problem has meant that I haven't been able to stand sitting still for too long. It has also left me feeling extremely grouchy and as with any persistent pain it had started to quietly feed my ever present fears of a recurrence.

What have I been up to?

Well I went to see the Eva Hesse exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. It is a modestly sized show, but the works on display are quite extraordinary, words like visceral and temporal have been used to describe them. I loved the materials she used, things like cheesecloth, papier mache and latex. There were a series of breast-like forms that I found particularly moving, as well as a latex box with a long umbilical like cord that hangs down to the floor with the weight and curve of an enormous burden.

I also saw a couple of the women who where on the Fielding Programme course with me earlier in the year, and got the benefit of seeing Katie's new hairdo, "The Amazing Quiff" in all its glory.

And I had my mother-in-law for a few days. She was in quite good form and we had fun talking about the bits and pieces she is going to buy for her new sheltered flat.

On Monday I took my turn with the School of Poets courtyard readings at the SPL and enjoyed some amazing readings from the young men that turned up. Yes it was all men! They have all been reading at Utter. I particularly liked a poem by Richard Tyrone Jones, on the subject of some noisy unborn children, who live in a biscuit tin. It was good to hear a poem like this from a young man.

The photo is from a hike I did last night with some other photographers, out to the site of two WWII mini submarine wrecks -scuttled to provide target practise for the RAF. They are only accessible at certain tides and we had a long hike, that ended in a downpour on the way home. But while everything else hurts today, wonder of wonders my back doesn't!

Again:Karima Francis

2009-08-12T19:29:00.003+01:00

I love this song! It popped up on shuffle on my overloaded i-pod, it was a tune of the week a while back on i-tunes. It is a good summer song I think. Be back soon, real life is intruding again..........

Guinea Pigs to Munch........Arrrgh

2009-08-09T14:08:00.005+01:00

I hurt my back yesterday watering the greenhouse. I stupidly stretched with a heavy watering can in one hand and something popped. So I'm eating painkillers and anti inflammatories like Smarties and feeling rather grouchy.

As luck would have it I also have to look after a friend's guinea pig from today, for a week. So I had fun this morning trying to clean out a hutch, while not bending and then trying to catch the wee bugger to put it out in its run! There will be a repeat performance tonight, when I have to catch it again to put it to bed in its nice clean hutch. We're on a rota and the last person looking after it said that it wasn't eating all that well, so I hope it doesn't croak on my watch, as it is an elderly critter.

Tomorrow I'm escaping to Glasgow for the day to see the Munch exhibition at the Hunterian.
I have liked his work for a long time, so I am really looking forward to seeing some 40 examples of his prints "in the flesh". I'm going with two poetry pals, so it should be a good day.

Harry Patch

2009-08-05T10:49:00.008+01:00

World War I veteran Harry Patch will be buried tomorrow. The former plumber, who fought at the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, gave a memorable interview to Today reporter Mike Thomson in 2005.

Thom Yorke, lead singer of the band Radiohead, was moved by the interview to write a tribute to the veteran, inspired by Harry Patch's words.

The song can be downloaded from the Radiohead website - all profits will go to the Royal British Legion.

The lyrics are:

Harry Patch (in memory of)

I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn

I'm so sad that the last three WW1 survivors have all died within weeks of each other, I feel like I've lost a last link with my grandfathers and great uncles who all fought in The Great War, one, a footballer, came home minus a leg, another lost part of his skull and survived early brain surgery.

Will we never learn?

Yay, got tickets for.........

2009-08-01T16:43:00.004+01:00

the Indigo Girls in Glasgow in October. I can't wait to see them live,as I have loved them for so long.

Sound

2009-07-29T17:05:00.006+01:00

I've been wondering about what I would do if I had a place on the "Plinth" thing in London.

And I think I would try and make a soundscape of the county where I live. We have so much, the beach, the woods, the fields and the hills. They would sound lovely beaming out over Trafalgar Square.

It is largely arable land and the fields are all turning golden just now, despite the soggy conditions that we've been experiencing.

Here is a still of a field of barley, that I took a few days ago, and wee bit of video that I shot two days afterwards, that demonstrates the sound that a huge field of ripening barley makes, which is obviously absent in the photo, although I did try to get a sense of movement into the shot.

All we need now is Eva singing "Fields of Gold".

After the deluge

2009-07-27T11:32:00.005+01:00

There are very few butterflies about this year, I think the endless heavy rain must be to blame, although a friend says that clouds of Painted Ladies have crossed the Channel, and that she remembers a host of them arriving here in the 1970s when there was a similar population explosion - so here's hoping.

I helped this friend to do some weeding in the "Big Garden" on Saturday, as we have a reception there on Friday to thank everyone who has helped with the restoration.
After that I'm stepping down, as family commitments are just too much at present.
This is a Peacock butterfly on a purple cone flower, not that expertly filmed, but it was a lovely sight.

My purple bicycle

2009-07-25T11:23:00.004+01:00

I had my old beat up bike serviced before my holiday to Harris and I've been using it much more since. It has new tyres and new brakes blocks and all the gears now work.

I gave up using it a few years ago after I managed to go over the handlebars at a busy junction. It was all my own fault, as I was riding home from volunteering at The Big Garden with a small garden fork swinging from my handlebars. You can imagine the rest.

But we are now reunited and I'd forgotten how great it is to get the scent of the flowers in the hedgerows as you pass by. Just now it is the meadowsweet, thanks to all the rain we've been having. And the other evening I also had a fox literally jump over my front wheel and off into the woods, and I've also managed to take a couple of hares completely unawares.

This is an old 1960s song about a white bicycle that I used to love. I think speed and gear probably had different meanings in relation to this tune.

On youtube it is much loved by nostalgic former paper boys.

Hendrik Nordbrandt

2009-07-22T12:05:00.006+01:00

(a larch composite done by me)

On a wet Wednesday I am grateful to my girlfriends, who call me up out of the blue and make me laugh out loud. They are quite simply the best medicine around.

I'm also grateful to Swiss Lounge for posting this wonderful poem by Hendrik Nordbrandt on his blog. The translator is unknown.

Pragmatic

The things that were here before you died
and the things that have come after:

To the former belong, first of all,
your clothes, the jewelry and the photographs
and the name of the woman you were named after
and who also died young...
But also a couple receipts, the arrangement
of a certain corner in the living room,
a shirt you ironed for me
and which I keep carefully
under my pile of shirts,
certain pieces of music, and the mangy
dog that still stands around
smiling stupidly, as though you were here.

To the latter belong my new fountain pen,
a well-known perfume
on the skin of a woman I hardly even know
and the new light bulbs I put in the bedroom lamp
by whose light I read about you
in every book I try to read.

The former remind me that you were,
the latter that you no longer are.

It is the near indistinguishableness
I find hardest to bear.

Opposite of Cabbage

2009-07-18T11:24:00.010+01:00

I am really pleased to be hosting a further stage of Rob A Mackenzie's Decabbage Yourself Logo Tour , which this week wends its way back to Scotland.

I, like many people I'm sure, am just astounded at what Rob manages to pack into life. He is the living, breathing proof of the old adage, "if you want something done ask a busy person".

Rob was born and brought up in Glasgow. He received a law degree from Aberdeen University and then abandoned the possibility of significant personal wealth by switching to theology at Edinburgh University. He wrote over seven hundred songs and doubled on guitar and saxophone for cult art-rock bands Pure Television and Plastic Chicken. Despite airplay on Radio Scotland and a rash of gigs in tiny Glasgow pubs, he failed miserably to achieve rock stardom. He spent a year in Seoul, eight years in a Lanarkshire housing scheme, five years in Turin, and now lives in Edinburgh with his wife and daughter where he organises the Poetry at the Great Grog reading series by night and works as a Church of Scotland minister by day.

His pamphlet collection, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance Press in 2005His poems, articles and criticism have featured in many literary publications over the last decade or so. He is an associate editor with Magma magazine. He blogs at Surroundings and at the Magma blog.

Rob's collection The Opposite of Cabbage is published by Salt Publishing (and available from Amazon on this embedded link)

"In this collection, opposites collide – reality and delusion, political activism and apathy, friend and enemy, life and death. These poems cut away at convention and simmer with unsettling, dramatic images. Ironic and humorous, complex and engaging, you can’t do without The Opposite of Cabbage."

One of my favourite poems in the book is My Dentist, Aneila, which to me reads like a mini multi-textured novel about the Scotland that we now all inhabit, a place were the old and the new truly rub up against each other, with surprising and often refreshing results for all concerned.

And so to my questions for Rob.

Scotland and Edinburgh feature heavily in your work, either as backdrop or the main character. You have also lived abroad for extended spells, so with the experience of both do you consider that your poetry to be at its most successful when drawing on home ground?

Not really. I wrote a series of poems about Scotland in (I think) 2007, about 15 months after returning home from 5 years in Italy. I felt keen to explore issues of Scottish identity, nationality and nationhood after living within a very different culture. I had asked myself many questions about Scottishness while living in Turin and these intensified when I came back. Quite a few of these poems made the cut for the book and I wrote others over 2008 as well.

However, I hope these poems have appeal to readers beyond Scotland. Their themes are prejudice, hedonism, roots, relationships with neighbours, core identity – themes which are important in virtually any part of the world. So while these poems are concerned with a specific time and place, they aren’t constrained by that. At least, that’s the general idea.

I’ve also written about other places, especially Italy, and several poems touch on the USA, a country I have never visited but which casts its shadow – in both positive and negative ways – over us all.

I am the daughter in law of a Church of Scotland Minister, and have seen the demands of the Ministry at first hand. Poet and Minister both have public faces, is there ever any tension in this for you?

Many people have asked similar questions during this Cyclone tour, but each questioner has asked it with a particular slant and your slant is very interesting.

There is a great tradition of poets who were also priests or ministers. Some of them have saved the certainties for their sermons and kept the questioning for their poems. Others have used poetry as a way of grasping at the sublime while leading tortured inner lives. But most poet-minister/priests have combined all of these – certainties, questions, spiritual quest and turmoil – in both sermons and poems.

I fall within that latter category, although not many of the more obviously religious poems made the cut for my book. They just didn’t feel good enough. However, the book is awash with religious references for any one who cares to spot them. I also don’t divide life into religious and non-religious spheres. For me, there is no clear dividing line. In the book, a poem about an Italian leader (‘Berlusconi and the National Grid’) can be as religious as a poem about a minister’s sermons (‘The Preacher’s Ear’), and the latter can be every bit as political.

Despite this, (and I perhaps now contradict myself), I tend to compartmentalise my life. I don’t read my poems to my congregation (for which they are no doubt extremely grateful) and my poems rarely, if ever, sermonize. However, there are many common elements between my poems and sermons as they both deal with matters that are important to me. Inevitably there is a great deal of crossover. The problem with my job is that it saps my creative energy and doesn’t allow me enough time to write poetry, but I guess people in a great many jobs would feel that.

One comment on the collection suggests that these poems are tougher and bleaker than your previous work. Is this a sentiment you agree with and were you conscious of this shift when putting the collection together?

I think it’s a fair comment, yes, and I did feel that was the case. In fact, I was delighted to get that comment. The toughness and the bleakness have to go together. If the collection were only bleak, then it would be thoroughly depressing, but I hope it’s not depressing at all. There is a great deal of black humour running through it. More than that, I tried to be honest in what I wrote, to stand up to the bleakness and, at times, to expose it behind whatever glitzy façade it puts on.

I try to avoid being needlessly portentous. I never want to give fake hope or shirk the vital questions because that’s the last thing anyone needs, but I do want to show glimpses of what it means to be fully alive and authentically human in circumstances that are often difficult, complex and even tragic. I’d like my poems to make people laugh and cry or do both at the same time.

Thanks for these answers Rob, I particularly enjoyed the one on the public face of being a Minister and poet, as you say it is one with a long and fascinating tradition.

All the best with the rest of the tour and continued success with the book!

Moon landings

2009-07-17T16:48:00.003+01:00

I've enjoyed this week's series on the Moon by Jeanette Winterson on BBC Radio 4, to commemorate the moon landings of 1969.

After listening to the programmes I found a great archive of photographs on the NASA history site. Including this amazing composite, simply entitled "Buzz on the porch".

Be back soon...........

Mothers' Sons

2009-07-14T11:10:00.009+01:00

(photo is mine - taken in Spain)

As the mother of an only son I must admit to having looked at the news of the last few days and wanted to weep.

And as my own son totters towards maturity I think I want to read a few books about mother and adult son relationships.

And I think might start with Colm Toibin's book of short stories on the subject, as I would like a male perspective on the relationship. Because I think I know what it feels like to do the mother part - however ineptly.

I recently sent a friend, who also has a boy on the cusp of adulthood, the Sharon Olds' poem
The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb because these four lines really speak to me:

Whatever he needs, he has or doesn't
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do.

It is not an easy time to be male. Why only the other day scientists in the UK claimed to have created human sperm.

What's your experience of raising boys to become men?

Nordic Poets

2009-07-08T13:29:00.008+01:00

I've started to get interested in Scandinavian poetry. I think I've mentioned before that I have Danish and Swedish blood in me from both lines of my family.

Sadly neither language was passed on to me. My father was half Danish on his mother's side, with a Swedish grandmother, but my grandmother died when he was eleven, in the middle of WWII, and contact was lost with her family and my father simply gave up on both languages.

My mother had Danish blood on her mother's side too, but was raised by her father's maiden aunt, after a short-lived marriage between her much older father and very young mother, so again there was no handing on of the language. Indeed I only confirmed her Danish connection by tracing my mother's maternal line after her death, as it wasn't a topic that our family ever discussed.

But I thought it would be interesting to read some Danish poetry, even if it is just in translation, as I often think my tastes and sensibilities are not really all that Scottish.

And from the little bits of research that I've done I've decided that there couldn't be a better place to start than with Inger Christensen.

Here are two extracts of her work:

1) The Butterfly Valley, a series of 15 sonnets, with the final sonnet being made up of lines from the first fourteen and

2) a photograph of a section of The Alphabet on a wall in Copenhagen with an extract of the poem. "Christensen wrote this masterpiece 1981. She uses the alphabet (from a [“apricots”] to n [“nights”]) along with the Fibonacci mathematical sequence in which the next number is the sum of the two previous ones (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34…).

As Christensen has explained: “The numerical ratios exist in nature: the way a leek wraps around itself from the inside, and the head of a snowflower, are both based on this series.” Her system ends on the n, suggesting many possible meanings including “n’s” significance as any whole number."

I have just ordered The Alphabet in English and hope to obtain a copy in Danish too, so that I can look at both together.

But maybe I should just stick with this gem, The Danish Poet (winner of the 2007 OSCAR® for best short subject).

Sunday 5 July

2009-07-05T13:58:00.005+01:00

We got to land on the Bass Rock on Friday and it was wonderful to be so close to thousands of gannets and to be able to observe their behaviour. Although the pong, the poo and being dive-bombed by herring gulls wasn't all that pleasant........

Here is a shot of incoming gannets. The boat skipper chummed the water with fish as we approached the rock, and soon the sky was full of birds. My camera does not buffer well in RAW format at speed, so this was taken in JPEG.

I'm looking forward to hosting Rob MacKenzie The Opposite of Cabbage tour later in the month. I've been following his travels when I can and hope I can do justice to the earlier stop offs.

In fact there is so much to look forward to this summer, the Scottish Poetry Library's School of Poets Courtyard Readings, as our contribution the Edinburgh Festival; The Beechgrove Garden TV programme coming to help me with a project in my own garden; and our 30th wedding anniversary - which I feel deserves a telegram from the Queen at the very least! Getting to 100 years old is a scoosh these days, but staying married for 30 years is bloody hard work!

Bi-Product

2009-06-30T15:42:00.008+01:00

I've decided that life is too short in the summer for long posts so I'll skip through with diary -type entries for the next wee while:

A lovely bi-product of co-editing qarrtsiluni's economy edition has been receiving Pam Hart's book of poems in the post. The Fifth Voice by toadlily press includes Pam's chapbook The End of the Body, and this beautifully observed title poem would be worth the purchase alone. She has the gift of freeze framing tiny time slices and crafting them into good strong poems.

And the beauty of toadlily's quartet series is that you get the work of three other poets too!

Friday I go out to the Bass Rock with Laurie Campbell the wildlife photographer, as part of my prize for winning the Environmental Impact part of a competition back in January. The forecast isn't great, so here's hoping...........

Last night I saw Harvey's Last Chance, with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, both largely playing themselves. It is a sweet escapist film, in the style of Four Wedding etc. But Thompson does have one good line about the British losing their stiff upper lip since Princess Di. I'm I alone in wishing we could find a bit of it again? Or is the genie too far out of the bottle?

Still editing Harris pictures, this is of Callanish in Lewis. The name makes me want to rewrite the Queen song ........

Home

2009-06-23T21:52:00.008+01:00

Ooof, that didn’t last long. We got home late on Sunday night and I have been slowly adjusting to the world again.

Harris was wonderful, the beaches, the dunes and the vast skies cut you right down to size, ‘til you feel like ant in summer grass.

I took lots of photos that I’m still working through, though I’ll probably only keep a few as I seem to get pickier and pickier about what works. But there’s one of water plants floating on a lochan that I’m really pleased with.

And I managed to see a red throated diver, a rare bird of the far north, and that was a real thrill, as they are so beautiful.

The late Ken Smith’s selected poems The Poet Reclining, which I borrowed from the Scottish Poetry Library, came with me and his poems seemed to fit the wildness that I was experiencing. I liked many of them – The Stone Poems, In Transit and Fox in October in particular. He was a fantastic poet and I’m really glad to have had the chance to read more of his work.

Here’s a clip of him that I found on youtube

Big Rock Candy Mountain

2009-06-11T14:48:00.007+01:00

Well as Titus Oates said I may be gone for some time......... Dog is off to stay with N., son has been warned about parties and leaving the iron on, water butts are full so that a sensible neighbour can take care on my greenhouse and cameras, bikes, boots and bottles will shortly be loaded into the car.

This song always reminds me of hellish family car journeys, when my sister would run out of distractions and start her nipping games and trips north felt about as momentous and impossible as Hannibal setting out from Carthage for Rome.

I learned today that the real version had an absolutely filthy last verse. Wish I had known that way back when.

TTFN........

Mungbeing slot

2009-06-07T14:12:00.004+01:00

A couple of years ago N asked me to take some photographs of her. She is a great advocate of just accepting her new body shape, post mastectomy. She even goes topless back home on the beaches in Spain, and is completely at one with herself.

Anyway, I took a whole series of shots of her and at the end of the session she persuaded me to use the remote shutter release and step into the shot.

The photograph that we captured is featured in this month's Mungbeing with a poem that I wrote about the experience.

She loves this image and I love and admire her for the strength and character she shows everyday living with Stage 4 breast cancer.

Florence and the Machine

2009-06-04T14:10:00.002+01:00

My son and I share similar tastes in music. Anyway he is to blame for getting me into this band. I prefer Dog Days, but you can't embed it.

qarttsiluni economy edition

2009-06-01T10:58:00.010+01:00

Our economy edition goes live today. I hope you will dip in and enjoy the large variety of things the issue will offer over the summer months.

Stop Press

A few bloggers are mentioning the issue, including Eileen Tabios' widely read blog and my NZ poet blogger friend Kay Cooke.

(photo by author)

Strip the Willow

2009-05-31T17:39:00.006+01:00

I've been running around from Gardening Scotland on Friday, where I saw some amazing show gardens done by friends,got to talk to a few nursery people that I know and bought some plants, which I didn't really need, but were to fabulous to live without and had to be snuck in the back gate and planted before "budgetary control" spotted them, and then to Glasgow yesterday for my SIL's 50th birthday party.

It was a lovely day, the sun blazed and the food and company was great and we had ceilidh dancing with an African drum section. And I met Larry Butler there, he's a friend of Colin Will's, but I didn't know that he's also a friend of my SIL's. Scotland can be a very small pond at times.

This is my SIL birling.

These Days

2009-05-26T11:30:00.008+01:00

Oh I do love May in Scotland. Everything looks and feels like it is at the height of its possibilities. I'm spending as much time as possible outside and in the garden, banking all this lushness against a dark, dank January day.

I'm also ticking off my things to do and starting to look forward to my break on Harris in June. The weekend Herald had some great pictures of the beaches up there and I can't wait to get these tired old feet shoeless and on those white sands - even if it does rain.

The economy issue of qarrtsiluni is coming together, and Pam and I are slipping into a good rhythm over reviewing submissions.

I attach three blooms from my garden, although it goes against the grain these are hand held JPEGs taken on automatic setting, as I never get time to process RAW files these days. So if they are wobbly please accept my apologies.

We have my SIL's 50th birthday party this weekend. I can't believe my husband's kid sister is 50. Boy have we all done some living since we were fresh-faced teenagers back in the 70s. There will be four generations at the party and it should be a lot of fun.

Anyway what are you doing reading this, get outside and enjoy the sunshine, while it lasts........

Projectitis

2009-05-21T12:31:00.004+01:00

Well I'm bumbling along trying to clear my backlog of projects, while still trying to weave in wee things that I actually like doing.

So I dodge out into the garden and do bits of weeding and then return to the computer to crunch out planting lists. One of the nice things that I've been doing is looking at some shots that I took of my nephew when he stayed. (It is my SIL's 50th next week and I thought I might give her a few photos as an addition to her present.)

I thought I'd try and make each shot look a wee different. And as my nephew thinks Obama is brilliant I decided to give this one the Obama portrait treatment. Let me know what you think.)

Oh and my brassneck scored another victory this week when the former chairman of the "big garden", who is also head of RGBE in Edinburgh, agreed to help us replant the alpine trough dedicated to the garden's founder. So on Tuesday one of the RGBE's alpine plant experts called out with plants, grit and leaf mould etc and completely redid the whole thing. It looks fantastic and will be another attraction for the Open Day.

Excuse any typos, my brain is very tired at the moment, so my mistakes are many and varied.

Off to clean .............

Be back soon!

2009-05-14T09:29:00.003+01:00

Sorry not to post. My MIL's house hand over is today, so we've been busy tying up loose ends. And the plants for the "big garden" turned up and Pamela, a fellow trustee, and I took two days to plant them. Me in factor 30, as that part of the garden is in full sun.

Plus the editing of the magazine is going on a pace.

I will write more fully next week, meanwhile ........

if nature twittered…

spinney’s warblers announce
all singing is now
in Dolby surround sound

mosses say you won’t
believe the pin-cushioned
wonder of this wall

And the loch whispers
hush, hush, hush

Rag Bag

2009-05-08T20:53:00.004+01:00

I'm really enjoying the qarrtsiluni guest editing spot, if for no other reason than it gives you a really good insight into how well presented work must be to stand out from the crowd. I am also discovering what a great resource google docs is for managing a large amount of disparate material and what great managing editors Dave and Beth are.

Yesterday I was at the National Galleries in Edinburgh to receive my runners up awards in their Inspired? Get Writing! competition. It was brilliantly organised and a really good evening with great readings by all concerned. I was really touched that so many friends took the trouble to come along and support me and I'm still dipping into the lovely goody bag of prizes that I received.

On the big garden I've been badly let down by one of the herb supplier and if they don't come through by early next week I will be spending much of my daylight hours running round local nurseries trying to get replacements plants.

This weekend I have my MIL and 9 year old nephew, who has already eaten some of the wild garlic in the garden, and is now breathing on the poor dog, making his poor old eyes water! Looks like I'm in for a fun weekend.........

May at qarrtsiluni

2009-05-01T17:28:00.002+01:00

I'm one of the guest editors for the new submission theme of "economy" on qarrtsiluni so I hope some of you will be sending some things in. Please click on the link for full details.

Reviving

2009-04-30T13:16:00.006+01:00

Well my knee is almost a normal size again. Not sure what was wrong, but anti-inflammatories helped, as did a delicious massage that N bought me for my birthday that I had put off using.

At the weekend I'm doing some photos of my friend's new wee dog. It was her fiftieth birthday recently and I offered to take some portraits as a present. I like photographing dogs and cats almost as much as people. This is a hairy beast I took a while back.

I'm also finalising the orders for the raised herb beds in the big garden. I've had to rejig some things, as the nurseries concerned have had complete crop failure on a few things, thanks to the very cold winter we had.

And trying to pull together an interpretation board for the Open Day - after that I'm going to step down, as I'm finding that I just don't have the time for personal things any more. I'm a bit sad about it, but relief is the bigger emotion, and I think I should start listening to myself now and again, as I simply don't have the energy that I used to.

Home From Writer's Retreat

2009-04-26T12:00:00.007+01:00

I had a wonderful time, combining working through a load of drafts, making notes from things that I've been reading,starting some new work and taking some long walks.

I can thoroughly recommend the Fielding Programme and Polly Clark to anyone wanting a bit of head space to pursue a writing project.

It was so peaceful I'm having a bit of difficulty re-engaging with the speed of the world and all things I need to do now that I'm back in it.

Falling Down on Blogging Duties

2009-04-19T13:06:00.004+01:00

Sorry I've not been around much - real life is intruding somewhat just now!
The clearing of my MIL's house carries on a pace and I've been looking after her this weekend at our house to allow that to happen more quickly.

My FIL came through his hip replacement operation really well, though he is understandably sore.

So hopefully by the middle of next month we will have a bit more time to ourselves, although just where my MIL will ultimately live is still to be settled. We hope to let her move between her three children for as long as she is able. Yesterday brought home to me just how fragile she is getting when I realised she hadn't put her seat belt on and I had to pull over and do it - these are the things you forget to look out for, as they are such automatic actions in oneself.

I'm now off to do the Fielding Programme and I'm looking forward to it enormously, no least beause it will be a welcome opportunity to focus on just one thing for a change.

And what about Susan Boyle voice, isn't she just fantastic? I just hope that she has someone looking out for her as she gets processed through the celebrity mill.

It seems to me that she brings an honesty, an innocence, and above all a pure unadultered joy about the act of singing to our jaded TV dinner table.

She's the human equivalent of the first blackbird on a Spring morning. I just hope nobody robs her of these qualities.

Speaking of wild garlic

2009-04-11T11:34:00.004+01:00

This is a path I always love in the Spring,it is used more by deer than people and I love the lush growth at this time of year. This is a carpet of wild garlic. There seem to be two forms, one with a strap leaf the other with the more usual broad leaf.

I wanted to give the shot the feel of an old hand coloured plate.

Fleeced, with apologies to RLS

2009-04-09T11:34:00.003+01:00

Fleeced in every sense of the word. This is horticultural fleece on a tatty field to prevent frost and blight from affecting the crop. Click on the photo to get a bigger view.

Tapestry

2009-04-08T11:30:00.009+01:00

It was lovely to watch Carol King on Jools Holland last night, and then to listen to her being interviewed on Woman's Hour today. Unlike some stars with much less talent she takes the trouble to genuinely respond to the questions she is being posed, and is also humble and prepared to give due credit to those who have worked with her over many years.

My own copy of the Tapestry album has been worn smooth with too many plays in cold, damp bedsits, but for some reason I found it lovely to learn from this interview that the cat that has sat on the cover of my battered copy all these years was actually was called Telemachus after Ulysses' father.

King herself has hardly changed, she still has that gorgeous,thick curly hair that I used to so covet as a young woman. The album is being re released after thirty odd years, but a cd or mp3 download will never be able to replace the feel or the memories of old beat up vinyl.

Good old Carol and good old New York, which has incubated such incredible music over the years.

(I'm also pleased to say that I've got a wee photo poem here on the wonderful multi media magazine MungBeing. There lots of great stuff on the magazine so please have a good look around on it.)

Pungent

2009-04-05T15:38:00.008+01:00

Pungent

Pink lady’s smock lies ringed
by phallic spikes of butter burr,
as the foxy scent of fritillary,
wild garlic's bearish breath
and the rucks and Fucks
of the rugby sevens carry
on the wind.

Photo of butter burr flower spike
curtesy of Ray Purser at pbase

Rufus and Martha, I just love them

2009-04-04T20:41:00.003+01:00

and Lhasa -I want this album when it comes out over here:

Bits and bobs

2009-04-02T10:51:00.010+01:00

(Flip snap, low res, but I love pussy willows -that'll get the spam crawlers excited!)

A couple of good things that seemed way off on the horizon are now rapidly approaching:

My fellow residents at the Fielding Programme are now up on the web and I'm really looking forward to meeting them. I'm busily gathering together notebooks and computer drafts of things, in the hope that I will get peace to look at them with a fresh, unjaundiced eye.
My fellow blogger at A Walk Around the Lake, Pam Hart, and I are working on the choice of theme for the summer issue of qarrtsiluni, with helpful input from Managing Editors Beth Adams and Dave Bonta. (I must admit that spelling qarrsiluni plays havoc with my dyslexic, chemo'd brain, I have to cut and paste it ever time.)

A few other random things that I'm enjoying just now are:

BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, The Old Boys' Network, which is the diary of the former head of Westminster School. I'm no great fan of private education, but this is really well written and full of interesting anecdotes and insights into how a man in this position exercises power and judgement.
Sowing seeds, I never tire of doing this, or taking pleasure in seeing a bean sprout or a lettuce stick its head above the parapet, even if a slug immediately takes it off.
Warmth that doesn't require central heating.
The prospect of dinner and a night at the theatre tonight with an old friend.

Busy, busy, busy

2009-03-31T17:38:00.007+01:00

Yesterday John, one of the other trustees, and I spent the morning planting the second phase of the cottage garden. We had to barrow in all the plants from the gate and then layout the planting plan on two big beds, one being a mirror image of the first, and then put in about 300 herbaceous plants. The turf is also down in parts and the whole thing is starting to pull together.
It has been a huge undertaking, deciding on the revamped layout, doing the drawing of the plan, researching suitable plants, working with nursery on what was still obtainable that was period appropriate and getting their helpful ideas on designs for planting the four beds, sourcing the new hedge and putting it in back in the autumn and working with the Community Volunteers to clear the site and layout the new beds and paths.

But yesterday it all came together and I must admit to feeling really proud of all our efforts. Members of the public stop to chat too and told us how they couldn't wait for it to grow and flower. It will be a typical blaze in June/July, but that's how things were back then, and leaves and seedheads will extend the interest.

I didn't take the camera as I had really dirty hands, but this shows some recent shots.

http://thepleasancehaddington.blogspot.com/

I also got asked for a copy of Peeling Onions for a friend of friend who is going through breast cancer treatment just now and got a lovely letter yesterday from the woman, which included this, " I could relate to so much of what you have written and it made me laugh and cry, especially about the diagnosis and other people's feelings."

So yesterday was a good day, it is well worth being alive when you can see that you have made a tiny difference to the world and someone else's life.

End of........

2009-03-28T10:47:00.007Z

As they used to say on the Fast Show, this week I've mostly been - clearing out.......

I've been sorting out my MIL's crockery and glass to see what might be worth going to auction, what the family wants to keep etc etc. The house is starting to feel less like a home and more like a waiting room, which is rather sad.

I think I counted over 20 glass thingies for putting in vases, a photo of some of them here off my Flip, with another shot of some of the Spode.

I've also had a birthday recently and got some poetry books from folk, including "Poems" by J H Prynne, clearly someone thought , that'll sort out her out - get your head around that then!

It is a huge tome and quite daunting, but I'm actually starting to like some pieces, as I read and reread them.

It makes you realise just how far one can push the boundaries of language and meaning, in a world where others are doing that anyway, either to sell us things, or convince us that their own world view is the right one, phrases of the moment like "quantitative easing" spring to mind.

John Kinsella 's helpful introduction on Prynne is at the clickable link, as is his appreciation of Prynne's poem Rich in Vitamin C .

A list poem that Roddy Lumsden did at Stanza was a bit Prynne - like, it was based on various technical terms used in the firefighting, a very suitable subject in the week of the G20 summit.

And I'm sure the President of Brazil's recent words to Gordon Brown would form the basis of a good poem, especially:

Before the crisis it looked like they knew everything about economics. And now they have demonstrated they don't know anything about economics.
These were people who appeared to be gods of wisdom.

National Galleries for Scotland

2009-03-24T10:32:00.005Z

I heard a few days ago that I've been made runner up in the published section of the National Galleries for Scotland Inspired? Get Writing!Creative Writing Competition.

This is the fourth year of the competition which is a three-way partnership between National Galleries of Scotland, the English Speaking Union and the Scottish Poetry Library.

Last year I got a special merit in the unpublished writers section.
But with Heart Notes being published last year, as well as having a few things accepted elsewhere, I had to step up to the published part of the competition. So I'm really amazed to have been awarded a runners up prize, as well as a further special merit award for another piece, at the first time of trying in this category. I submitted four pieces and got prizes for two, which can't be bad.

I think it means I'll have three pieces in the very beautiful biennial publication that will come out the September and will include all the art work and the winning pieces from the last two years - including pieces by the talented Alan Gay and Rob MacKenzie.

The two pictures I chose to write about were Alison Watt's wonderful Sabine, which is my runners up piece, and a tiny jewel of a landscape by the 17th century artist Hendrick Avercamp, called A Winter Landscape.

The readings and presentation are in May and I think my prize is a book of tickets for two for all of the up and coming exhibitions in the next year.

Stanza

2009-03-22T16:35:00.006Z

I did a very whirlwind visit to Stanza yesterday with a couple of friends from the Musselburgh group of Tyne and Esk writers.

We saw Homecoming poets Annie Boutelle (who teaches in the English Department, Smith College, where she founded the Poetry Center in 1997. Her first book of poems, Becoming Bone was published by University of Arkansas Press. Her second book, Nest of Thistles, which focuses on her Scottish childhood, was published in 2005 by the University Press of New England, and won that year's Samuel French Morse Prize) and Ros Brackenbury (who lived in Edinburgh for 12 years, where she co-founded Shore Poets with Brian Johnstone in 1991. Since 1993, she has lived in Key West, Florida, with her American husband. She has published five collections of poetry, the latest of which is Yellow Swing (2004), as well as several novels. Her latest novel, Becoming George Sand, is due to be published by Doubleday (Canada) in 2009.)

They did a good set and it was interesting to note that their geographical locations in the US seemed to match their poetic style and their outward appearance. Annie Boutelle's style was concise, neat and precise, Brackenbury's more expansive
and relaxed. Brackenbury did the best name drop of the day by mentioning that she'd done a workshop with Sharon Olds. As my friend Irene would say, there I sat at one remove from greatness ....

And then we went on to see Roddy Lumsden, who I enjoyed enormously.(He teaches for The Poetry School and Morley College in London and is currently compiling Identity Parade, a major anthology of recent British and Irish poetry.) I don't know why but I had expected a rather pugilistic style, but his delivery was rather gentle and very thoughtful. And he displayed a dazzling virtuosity in terms of subject choices and style - I was disappointed not to be able to wait and queue for a copy of his new book Third Wish Wasted, but I will ask for it for my birthday.

Then I went to the pamphlet fair, where I was looked after Colin's Calder Wood Press stall for an hour. There I met fellow blogger Rachel Fox as well as lots of other poetry chums from the other side of the Forth. And I managed to scribble down a haiku for Colin's Stanza haiku exercise.

We also gave our seat in the cafe to Simon Armitage, we were leaving anyway, but I like that about Stanza - it is a very democratic festival. One minute folk are upon the stage, the next they are sitting beside you eating.

I believe .... in Spring

2009-03-18T19:34:00.006Z

Gorgeous day, so I took the lensbaby into my garden. NY poet Holly Anderson and I have agreed to do a project together that we're tentatively calling "zoned", because in North America areas are zoned to denote the climate and therefore the hardiness of the plants that will grow there. I won't give away all of our ideas as we hope to have something worthwhile by this time next year.

Review

2009-03-18T11:29:00.007Z

There are two things I consciously don't do, one is go to funerals unless I know that a real effort has been made to capture the essence of the person, and the other is writing reviews. My reasons for not writing reviews are complex -

1)I feel they are a bit of an art form.

2)While I trust my own ear, eye, heart and mind I'm never sure that I'm good at getting their honest reaction down on the page with the required balance and objectivity.

3)I tend to think, "what gives me the right to criticise"

and

4) I'm a kind of artless person, be my friend and I'll defend you to the death, but I come from a long line of folk who didn't do praise,and were bloody good at nit picking and silently crushing the spirit, so don't ask me what I think because I'll just revert to type. (I love Sharon Old's poem Fish Oil, which also touches on this idea.)

So may I highly recommend K Cadwallender's review of Irene Brown's Glass Slippers which is a really good reflection of the night and of Irene's individual voice and style. (for the uninitiated click on the link to go to the review)

The photo is of an Angelica pachycarpa (native of Spain, naturalised in NZ) leaf breaking. I've been very slow to be won over to Spring this year, but I'm getting there now.

Old remedies

2009-03-14T12:49:00.018Z

Old Remedies
(draft)

Apply a scalding poultice
to lance the boil. Let maggots
gnaw at mouldering flesh.
Wash noxious odours
from fevered skin, then loose
the leeches from the purdah
of their porcelain jar. Purge
me of both black and yellow bile.

Once cured prescribe
an indeterminate absence
in a warmer clime
to prevent recurrence
of my ill humour and caustic
phlegm.

I've been reading about a specialist "maggot nurse" who uses maggots to treat necrotic wounds, and wrote this afterwards.

Irene Brown's pamphlet launch last night was really good and her final poem, a comic villanelle was excellent - I've never heard the form treated like that before and it really works. Good to hear some west coast humour in Embra.

Lisa Hannigan/I don't know

2009-03-12T13:58:00.004Z

If,like me,you're feeling curmudgeonly this should help.

The Scottish Parliament: New graffiti

2009-03-12T09:24:00.011Z

"A new quotation is to be added to the Canongate Wall at Holyrood to mark a decade of devolution. Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson MSP today launched the hunt to find a new addition to the 24 quotes already in place on the Wall.

Announcing the start of the search, Mr Fergusson said: “The Canongate Wall was always supposed to be a living wall – one that we would add to when the time was right. We believe that as we approach our tenth anniversary, that time is now.

"We are asking people to nominate a well-loved or significant piece of writing that is relevant for Scotland, perhaps something that expresses how they feel about Scotland, what it means to be Scottish, or hopes for the future.”

I'm reading Don Paterson's The Blind Eye just now and I think,

"Fate's book, but my italics"

would work very well. The nationalists could even recast this to read, "Westminster's book, our italics".

Or perhaps:

"I've always wanted to serve, and now that Woolies is no longer an option..."

which is my own, but I think it has a certain ring to it.

Paterson has another lovely one though, that the panel might even consider -

"Whale to the ocean, bird to the sky, man to his dreams"

- just so long as we're not planning any cultural exchanges with the Norwegian or Japanese Parliaments that is.

I also have a wee soft spot for something profound that Oor Wullie said years ago in the last frame of one of his strips -

"Where there's a Wullie there's a way!"

It's something my dog swore by, until his operation.

Wendy Richard

2009-03-10T09:49:00.005Z

I had a good chuckle at Wendy Richard insisting that her recipe for chili con carne be printed on the order of service at her funeral. I also found her simple willow coffin very moving.

She has provided much of the "visual soundtrack" for my generation and she will be sorely and genuinely missed.

It is proving to be a hard time for those living with and being treated for cancer, as there is also the media blitz over Jade Goody's sad demise. I think the least judgemental of all have been those people living with and being treated for the disease. I've known a number of very young woman who have died of breast cancer and it has always seemed like the cruelest cut of all, because they often leave very young children or are deprived of ever knowing motherhood.

I'm not going to debate the wisdom of living in the eye of the camera, it seems to me to be more like a life in the eye of a tiger. But Jade Goody has already saved the lives of a number of her peers, who like her had thought that youth conferred some sort of invincibility and/or immortality, and that is something they and we should all be very thankful for.

I also hope her situation makes them think about their own sexual health and that of their daughters - the new cervical cancer vaccine has the potential to save very many lives.

I was also saddened to learn of Ann-Marie Rogers death. She won a landmark victory in 2006 to be treated with HER2 inhibiting drug Herceptin. When I was first diagnosed this drug was still in clinical trial and I had to volunteer for the trial to get the blood test to see if I was "Her2-positive". Fortunately I wasn't, as HER2-positive breast cancers tend to be more aggressive than other types of breast cancer, but at least I then knew what type of cancer I was dealing with. I can't imagine what it must have been like to fight a high profile court case while dealing with this disease.

On the radio this morning they were again debating the merits of feminism and some women in the debate were being almost apologetic for using the word.

These three women are all feminists in the best possible sense of the word, in that they valued their lives and the skills and strengths that they each possessed.
They are wonderful examples of life being so much more than mere longevity and we should celebrate them.

Polly Clark/Fielding Foundation

2009-03-05T14:05:00.008Z

I got an e-mail from Polly asking me for a 75 word biography and photo for the Fielding Foundation site for the April 2009 course.

This makes the fact that I'm going at all start to feel horribly real and trying to extricate myself from things around here is getting all the more difficult, what with my MIL's house selling, which means we now have to empty the place by mid May and my FIL's hip op, no he's not a rapper, now happening on the 15 April.

My family all have a great capacity to bury their heads in the sand as things with the speed and force of a runaway steam train come thundering towards them out of left field. I'm not entirely sure what the evolutionary benefits of this trait are, nor do I have it in the great spades that my father did, but it does lurks within me and I do deploy it against the things that I find most scary.

I booked this course a year ago, for the very reason that I wanted to have one week where all I had to think about was me. But I'm now starting to feel selfish, with a large dose of blind panic thrown in for good measure.

On a more upbeat note Lucy and I have an overspill piece at postal poetry from our "mutating the signature" collaboration, my photo/her poem. And my friend and soon to be published poet, Irene Brown and I have both got poems into this collection , a poetry and film project about Edinburgh using 100 poems about the city that will be turned into film shorts. We applied at the 11th hour, so I'm 98 and Irene is 97 I think, but the company is very fine.

Photography Competition Winners

2009-03-04T16:44:00.000Z

Here's the link to see the winning shots

On the mend

2009-03-03T12:10:00.003Z

Still feeling lousy, but at least I'm up today and moving around, albeit in the house. The car is home and 300 quid has walked out the door - but I tell myself that that is less than a pound a day and that I'm worth it.

Nothing much else to report, other than I wish there was someone here to make me chicken soup :(

I took this photo last Spring, the pond was full of junk, which looks like digital noise, but I like the dispostion of the tadpoles. I wrote the words today.

Balance sheet insolvent

2009-02-26T13:50:00.007Z

This morning I received a lovely note and photo via good old snail mail from my poet and artist friend Judi Benson, who is the widow of poet Ken Smith. It was a fantastic photo of the recent snow in London, showing one of Judi's cherry trees burdened by about a foot of snow on each branch - in fact it look like a snowdrift had been plonked up in her tree.

It was such a nice surprise to get a real note through the mailbox. And last week I cheered my FIL up, he's housebound pending a hip operation, by sending him a bunch of art programmes that I'd DVD'd, as he likes to paint and is really missing his art classes. Just two examples of how I use the Royal Mail. I also value it for the service it delivers to very rural Scottish communities.

So at lunchtime today I was very pleased to hear a female Labour MP making a stout defence of the service by saying that the Government's argument that the Royal Mail should be sold off because it is "balance sheet insolvent" could equally be applied to the country right now, and that no-one is advocating we sell off Wales!

Good for her I say!

And while we're at it let's get Fred the Shred into a high visibility jacket!

And good for Andy Murray, he says he is willing give up his RBS sponsorship, as he feels ashamed to be taking money from them in the present climate.
He seems to have a better moral code at 20 than most of the middle aged bankers that have been paraded before us.

Other than that the week has been mixed, on Tuesday I read with three other Calder Wood Press writers at the launch of Colin's latest book project. It was a good night and we had a great audience. Then yesterday my wee car had a brake problem on the A1 when I was half way to Edinburgh and I had to turn around and nurse it home. So it is off the road until Monday when it goes in to be fixed, which is a bit of a pain and an expense.

Sometimes

2009-02-20T18:07:00.005Z

I think I might do a series of these, as "sometimes" is a favourite word of mine.

Also caught this amazing piece on Harmonica Breakdown, a piece of dance choreographed by Jane Dudley in 1938 and based on southern share croppers and the music of Sonny Terry. The best bit is at 2.22on the second video, which shows the extraordinary dance.

Result!

2009-02-19T12:10:00.009Z

First thanks to Roseneath for the tag.This is the sixth photo in my sixth folder of B&W material. I took it for a friend of a friend and the framing was a lucky accident. But she loved it and I do too.

On the competition I WON!!! I got first prize in the environmental category, which is interesting because I was at a poetry workshop on Saturday and the guy taking it said, in response to another person's poem, something along the lines of, "I don't really do the environment, it's not really a concern of mine".

Sometimes it does you good to be reminded that you can't assume that you are preaching to the converted! But I can't for the life of me see how you can truly be a poet if you don't care for the world around you, but maybe that's just me.....

The judges in the competition were good, in that they said that in this category they were looking for more than a competently taken photograph, they were also looking for something that conveyed an idea.

My B&W shot was of a burst football washed up on the tide line all battered and burst. I photographed so it looked like a mini planet that had been given a right good kicking. one whole section ripped open revealing the structure underneath.

I'm also researching 17th century varieties of thyme and I'm in contact with the lady who holds the national collection, she tells me she is doing DNA research into thyme, which, if you hear it said out loud,is kind of a lovely idea I think.

This my fav song currently, The Poorest Company by Kris Drever John McCusker Roddy Woomble:

Almost complete lyrics

THE POOREST COMPANY

When the world feels like the water breathing in and out of thee,
And I'm standing beside you, there's a shadow where a man should be,
I would be glad enough if wherever I may be,
People would remember we're woven in this tapestry.

When we steal what we can, with the courage to be free,
And I've found where I belong among the poorest company.

When the world feels like a world, a useless spinning ??
A country round my shoulders, a flag raised on a gallows tree,
I won't let it get you down. I know there are people now
Who bind together what they do and live their lives like I want to.

When we steal what we can, I take everything I see,
And I've found where I belong among the poorest company.

When we steal what we can, with the courage to be free,
And I've found where I belong among the poorest company.

A Quicky

2009-02-17T12:53:00.003Z

I'm kind of bored with myself at present, therefore nothing much to post.

Life is a bit of a grind just now, both in laws in failing health in two different locations,so my husband is stressed beyond measure with no immediate respite in sight. It is hard to watch, and believe me I do help where I can.
While I wish my parents had had longer and happier lives I'm actually quite glad that their not around to suffer the slings and arrows of very old age.

Light relief is a photography prize giving tomorrow. Although I had 4 shots short listed in three categories and I really don't expect to win anything, but it should be an enjoyable do if it is anything like last year. And an old friend who I haven't seen for ages is coming to see me for the day and we'll be able to talk cameras.

And as ever the garden provides a wonderful escape. I'm having a massive clear up as an exciting possibility is coming up, which I can't say anything about yet as it might not come off. But out there today the scent of the aconites on the breeze was just gorgeous and the daphne is a gnat's crotchet away from breaking, which is always a heady highlight.

Anyway lunch and dog walking duties beckon.

Rare Disease Day

2009-02-15T16:56:00.010Z

February 28, 2009 has been declared Rare Disease Day by the National Organization for Rare Diseases (NORD). NORD is coordinating Rare Disease Day in the U.S.
But this is a global effort, as last year,co-ordinated by the European Rare Disease Organization, many European countries also declared this date as Rare Disease Day.

The purpose of the day is to increase awareness of rare diseases as well as the importance of treatment and research.

Did you know that a child smiles 300 about times a day and an adult maybe 15 times?

But imagine if you couldn't smile at all?

Moebius Syndrome is but one example of a rare neurological disorder that is present at birth. It primarily affects the 6th and 7th cranial nerves, leaving those with the condition unable to move their faces (they can’t smile, frown, suck, grimace,blink or move their eyes laterally.)

It must be a devastating disorder for children and parents alike to contend with.

I was lucky enough to be able to benefit from research into breast cancer, an all too common illness. So please, if you can, support Rare Disease Day. Their website is here and this is the Flicker photo stream for the day.

Let's raise the profile of some less well-known illnesses that continue to afflict far too many people around the world, and let them know they are not alone!

For my Valentine

2009-02-13T11:55:00.003Z

This is the first 45 my old man bought me. I've known him 34 years now, been married for 30 this summer. He drives me mad sometimes, and at time I suspect I annoy him intensely too, but I would never want to have to try and get to know another soul as well as I know him, our history runs too deep. And who said I wasn't romantic ...... :)

Enough of this snow malarky!

2009-02-12T17:23:00.007Z

Enough already! We woke to another three inches on snow this morning. I was due to go and photograph some snowdrops up in the hills, but they will be completely covered up there and I'd need a 4x4 to get in. So this is a euphorbia in the garden that I took this morning - its flowering bracts coiled and waiting for Spring, weighed down by the overnight fall of snow.

Tuesday I took some photographs of a friend, he knows who he is, for a project that he has coming off. We were blessed with crisp sharp light and no snow and I'm quite pleased with the results. I edited them yesterday afternoon, which took longer than the actually shoot, but I do love looking at the thumbnails the first time, it's the modern equivalent of the rush you used to get looking at negs on a lightbox.

Yesterday N & I did a long walk on the coast, a la Neil Oliver lol, and got we got windblasted for our pains. But the dogs had a lovely time chasing each other and I saw my first brown hare of the year, as well as a whole bunch of eider duck out on some very stormy swell - with the full moon the tides have been running very high.

I signed up to the Lovefilm DVD club and got my first film yesterday, the most excellent 1959 French Robert Bresson film "Pickpocket".

"Inspired by Dostoevsky’s 'Crime and Punishment', Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket tells the story of Michel (Martin Lasalle), a solitary young man who embarks upon a life of petty theft. Plying his trade on the city streets, racetracks and Métro system of Paris, Michel hones his sleight-of-hand skills to perfection and becomes consumed by his escalating addiction. But his activities alienate him from his few friends, while attracting the attention of a police inspector and a professional criminal (Kassagi), who recruits him into his band of thieves. Bresson’s use of non-professional actors, pared-down cinematic style and meticulously choreographed scenes of audacious robberies lend the film a remarkable and thrilling sense of authenticity. Emotionally restrained yet ultimately spiritually moving, many critics consider Pickpocket to be Bresson’s masterpiece. "

It arrived in an envelope, which you open, tear off the part addressed to you, watch the film, pop it back in the pre-addressed envelope, stick down the tab and put it back in the post - a brilliant idea and service. And it is great fun browsing on-line, and building up your own personal library of things you want to see in the future.

My next pick is the acclaimed Spanish chiller "El Orfanato" "which harks back to an older tradition of psychological scares epitomized by classics like The Innocents, The Haunting, and Cat People."

If this weather keeps up it will be money well spent.

I love Sundays

2009-02-08T23:16:00.014Z

I worked in the garden again today, still tidying things up, collecting up leaves and bits of tree dropped during the loping of the willow, the ground was too hard to do much else.

Then I made a big casserole with brisket and bay leaves picked from the garden and enjoyed it perfuming the house while I watched Quand j'étais chanteur - with Gerard Depardieu. (I was so sad to hear of his son's death this week.)

I really like this song from it, Les Paradis Perdus,(this is someone's home made video, but it has the best sound of the versions on youtube)

I think I'm going to join a DVD club with a decent world film section as I find more and more that I like foreign cinema. (TV is getting like the States, 222 channels and nothing on - save endless bloody repeats of "Coast" - Christ if I have to watch that man Oliver flick his hair out of his mouth and then speak over his shoulder into the teeth of a gale on some windswept, soggy British beach once more I'll bloody scream! He is to geography/travel what Taggart is to murder.)

After that I watched an amazing film on Henry Darger. It's made by Diorama films (click the links for tasters of Darger work and the film). I hadn't heard too much about his work before, but I found this film spellbinding.

He lived a long life largely in poverty, but he created an incredible internal world of colour and beauty that was only discovered when he was moved into a charitable old folks home during the final weeks of his life. If you get the chance view the film and judge him for yourself.

(PS excuse my typos, I'm really struggling at present to catch mistakes, maybe my brain is still fried from the migraine)

Blech and Yipee!

2009-02-06T12:52:00.007Z

Stop Press - The Mutating the Signature pieces that Lucy and I worked on together are now on line here at qarrtsiluni. I hope you like them, we enjoyed preparing them last December. Lucy has written much more lucidly about the whole process over on her blog. BTW if you want to find a little inspiration in each day be sure to bookmark Lucy's blog as she never fails to catch the spirit of the season, or mood of the day.

Thanks for the comments on the draft poem, I've taken it down as I'm still fiddling with it.
Had a bit of a lost evening yesterday with my first migraine in almost two years, but I'm feeling better, if lighter today!

I had the tree surgeon in yesterday to pollard a twisted willow, Salix matsudana ‘Tortuosa’, that grows at the end of my garden, and I was out there afterwards trying to cram as much other garden rubbish into the skip before it got taken away and I think I just got really chilled.

I'm feeling a bit fed up with myself healthwise as I also failed the dexa/bone density scan that was ordered for me after stopping Arimidex, the breat cancer drug I was on for three and a half years. So I now have to take a calcium supplement twice a day, and it tastes absolutely revolting, like eating a stick of blackboard chalk. I'm disappointed to need a supplement, as I had hoped eating a healthy diet would have been enough. But it is a small price to pay compared to everything else that I've gained.

I'm also getting daily visits from the pup Jack Russell, whose home borders the end of our garden. He's learned to scale a 6ft stone wall and I keep finding him happily digging up my bulbs.
Last night I spotted him out in the gloaming at 5.30pm having a whale of a time. My dog
just sits at one of the intersections of the paths and gives the odd bark - like a despairing old uncle, as the pup loops-the-loop all around him. I fear he's like a baby who has learned to toss something out of his pram and that he won't stop until a better distraction comes along. His owner apologises profusely when I take him home, but I'm not sure what she can do to keep him in and he is so cute it is hard to be angry with him.

Off to sleep for a bit now, as I still feel a bit spacey.

Blackcap

2009-02-02T11:26:00.011Z

Typical! Last week I took part in the RSPB survey of garden birds and the types of birds that visited my garden where the same as last year:

greenfinches

chaffinches

brambling (1 caught up with chaffinches)

goldfinches

robin

blackbird

collared doves

wood pigeon

song thrush

and

siskins

And then this Saturday I was looking out the window at the feeders and spotted something more unusual - a male blackcap. My bird book tells me that these are usually summer visitors, with a few birds overwintering in the SW of England. However I did a search on Flicker and discovered a whole thread about them visiting gardens as far north as Elgin this winter. Mine is living in the ivy beside the feeders and he is quite a stroppy wee individual, rushing out to chase off
ground-feeding chaffinches - only the robin seems able to stand up to his "attacks". I just hope he gets through this cold snap in one piece.

Here is a snatched JPEG of him, he is a lovely slatey-grey, with a shock of black on his head, a bit like Elvis. He's hard to photograph as he's always on the move.

I also been busy with the "big garden", activating our page on the community website, and then linking it across to a new blog set up under a different identity than my own blog, as I want to keep them separate. I've also link us to the BBC Breathing Places website, as we got some funding for them to develop a small orchard. You can see it all here - including some wobbly video on the two areas we are currently working on. I used my monopod to support the Flip camcorder, but a bit like President Ford I found it hard to walk, talk and film all at once -I promise to get better!

Since shooting video the gardener and I have planted two small crab apple trees beside the new hedge, in time I hope they'll share part of their canopies with the cottage garden. They are malus baccata, which is an early 18th centuary introduction from Siberia, which is a tad out in terms of dates, but it is healthier than our native crab and it's a species tree and not a modern cultivar.

Alice Munro - Carried Away

2009-01-29T11:02:00.011Z

"Carried Away is a dazzling selection of stories–seventeen favorites chosen by the author from across her distinguished career."

I have come to Alice Munro late, by way of the Julie Christie film Away From Her, which is based on a Munro story, and the crits for this book.
(BTW Away From Her can best be summed up as a late in life take on the Crosby, Stills and Nash song, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you will", beautifully pointed up by a Canadian landscape in winter )

I'm glad to have found Munro so late in life, as I suspect I wouldn't have been ready to absorb the full resonance of her writing at an earlier age.
At this stage in my life, having raised a child, weathered a long marriage, and seen both parents and a brother die I think I am more than ready to fully appreciate the depth of her writing.

And for part of my childhood I lived in a tiny isolated village, where my parents ran a pub, so I can identify with characters whose lives are lived under a parochial microscope, where conformity is all and life is often hard and short.

Munro is older than me, but I'm also old enough to know about women who have been torn between family and education. There is a telling line in one story where a father tells his daughter that she risks getting too clever for anybody to ever want her. This was, and still is, the experience of many women - my own mother was denied a place at art school by such family thinking.

I'm having to ration myself with this book, as I want to eat it all up in one sitting, but every page it is so beautifully written that it deserves to be read slowly and savoured.

Other than reading I'm busy in the two gardens at the moment, plus my husband has a rare week off so we are enjoying some long walks together.

So apologies for not getting round as many folk as I'd like to.
N looked up my blog recently and said I need to get out more - I don't really spend that much time on-line, but as the weather is fine and mild here just now I'm taking her at her word.

The photograph is a HDR shot from a walk late yesterday evening in Belhaven Bay. The bridge only functions when the tide is out - as a result pictures of it have featured in quite a few newpapers.

Auld Lang Syne

2009-01-25T23:15:00.003Z

The Sex in the City/Mairi Campbell version - Rabbie would have approved!