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A Few Updates

I have a new computer, which is very lovely in many ways, but I am struggling to find the photos I uploaded yesterday, so until I learn the file management system on this beast, there will have to be old photos. This is one of my library, which was set up last year. Although it has a lot of books in it, it is mostly used for a chill out space for those of us who need a break from the chatter when we’re all together, and for crafting. Sometimes I feel rather uncomfortable about having so much space and access to books, when some people, especially the younger generation, find themselves struggling with access to resources to support their writing, so I’d like to find a way to share this. If you are a writer who needs to borrow or consult books that I have, let me know and we’ll see what can be done.

This is a bit of a distraction from my main intention which was to remind everyone about the poetry event at the Little biggar Festival on 28th October. The Facebook posting reads:

Biggar-based publisher Red Squirrel Press invites you to an afternoon of Red Squirrel Press poets and friends in aid of MacDiarmid’s Brownsbank, held in Biggar & Upper Clyde Museum on 28th October.

Featuring some of the best-known names in poetry, WN (Bill) Herbert, Dundee Makar and Professor of Poetry, Sean O’Brien, multi award- winning poet and Emeritus Professor, Colin Will, writer, musician, former Scottish Poetry Library and StAnza International Poetry Festival Chair, award winning Biggar-based poet Lindsay Macgregor, Andrew Forster, poet and literature development worker and was previously Literature Development Officer for Dumfries and Galloway. Elizabeth Rimmer widely-published poet, reviewer and editor, author of four collections from Red Squirrel Press and editor of the eco-poetry discussion website Ceasing Never.

Tickets available from https://www.biggarlittlefestival.com/literature/red-squirrel

There is another upcoming reading in Stirling on 4th November as part of Paperboats Day for Nature, but I will post more about this later when further details are available.

Also, I am sorry to announce that I am going to stop sending out my newsletter. I used Mailchimp, but as the parent company has announced its intention to scrape content in order to train AI, the potential for copyright infringements eems too high to be worth it. I’m looking for alternative ways of keeping in touch, as there are some subscribers who don’t follow me elsewhere on social media, but in the meantime, I can be found on BlueSky, (mostly poetry) Mastodon (mostly politics and environmental stuff) and Instagram (herbs, cooking and gardening). That’s a lot, and I’ll probably refine it as the platforms develop, but that’s where I am just now.

October 20, 2023
The Wee Gaitherin

Stonehaven may well be my new favourite Scottish town. In spite of the nightmare of cancelled trains, the journey turned out to be lovely – I must admit, Scotrail staff are enormously kind and helpful if you get caught up in this kind of thing. I was only just thinking how much I missed the open fields at harvest time, but going up through the East coast big sky country, there were fields of wheat, packed heavy and still in the gentle morning sun – how good the weather was! – hayfields all harvested and open to the sparrows and finches, cows and sheep, white houses knee deep in the hedgerows and little green wooded river valleys.

Stonehaven itself is lovely. I’m not sure what I was expecting – something industrial and abandoned perhaps – but it isn’t like that at all. Its seaside resort days are past their best, but the lovely stone houses are still there and the main street and market square have interesting shops and evidence of a thriving artistic community. And there’s the harbour and the sea, though I didn’t have time to see them.

The Festival is brilliant. It is very well-organised – communications from the organisers have been uniformly timely and helpful, and the venue Number 44 Hotel was very generous and hospitable. I hope they made a packet from all the poets and friends who came, because they deserved it. The contributors are a rewardingly diverse bunch – different levels of experience, different genres, different backgrounds – and the audience was the warmest and most receptive I’ve seen in a long time. I sold a book, and bought three – that’s how these things go – and we swapped books and news and met and made friends as happens at all the best festivals. And heard some great poetry.

The squirrels: From left to right – Carolyn Richardson, Edwin Stockdale, Judith Taylor Helen Boden (behind), Elizabeth rimmer, Tim Turnbull, Hazel Cameron.

Thank you to everyone who organised, participated, attended or otherwise enabled such a lovely day. Especial thanks to Judith Taylor who organised the showcase in the absence of publisher Sheila Wakefield who is still battling long-term illness, and to Edwin Stockdale who – with Judith – manned the stall. I’m really looking forward to furthering my acquaintance with both the Wee Gaitherin and the lovely town of Stonehaven next year.

August 4, 2024
Lavender’s Blue

It is Midsummer Day and the cloud is thick and heavy, though it is quite warm, and there hasn’t been much rain. The burn is quiet and the muddy banks are drying out. The pollen count is very high, so I am not even thinking of going into the garden until the next shower. The roses are in full bloom now and the tutsan bush and the dyer’s greenweed make a bright flash of yellow among all the leafage of the front garden, where the lavender borders are just thinking of coming into flower.

This week’s harvest has been the quaint stems of quaking grass:

which will dry so they will last all the year round. I will add the heads of poppy and teasel, when they ripen – their pale neutrals will make an airy display on my window sill. The poppies are at their best, though they seem to flower erratically, never more than two or three at a time, and dropping their petals within twenty-four hours, so there is a constantly moving flash of fire against the green.

The weather has been so cold at nights until the last week that the cuttings I took have not yet rooted and the tomatoes are looking puny and miserable. The herbs are thriving, however – the vervain and wormwood I planted out have taken well, and chamomile, yarrow, honeysuckle and marigold are on the edge of flowering. And finally we have meadowsweet in flower in the dampest part of the front garden – I didn’t feel properly settled in this garden until the meadowsweet and lavender have made themselves at home, so this feels significant!

The cold seems to have been tough for the birds too. Although this year’s broods fledged about when I expected, they are still coming to the feeders in great numbers, which seems to show that there isn’t so much alternative food about. We have a great spotted woodpecker too, conspicuous among the drab juvenile starlings by its flashes of scarlet, but the magpies seem to have intimidated the robins and goldfinches.

On the solstice we went to Cathkin Brae to watch the sunset. It was a disappointingly cloudy night, and the midges were out in force, but there were two thrushes singing against each other from the tallest trees and the air was full of the scent of elderflower. Let’s hope for less cloud and more sun this summer!

June 24, 2024
May Reading

The month started with Paula Jennings’ poetry collection, This is you Dear Stranger, published by Red Squirrel Press. It’s an astonishing book, not only because it was published while both poet and publisher were seriously ill, but because it moves beyond anything I expected from Paul Jennings, whose pamphlet, Under a Spell Place, exploring the experience of dementia, I have loved for a long time. These are strange, daring, tactile poems dealing with the female experience of nature, bodilyness, aging, death and memory. I gobbled this book – it was a delight.

Windswept by Annie Worsley, published by William Collins. Annie Worsley has written a blog called Red River Croft for several years, and this book is a synthesis of all she has observed and learned in that time. She writes about migrating birds, the return of many wild flower species to the croft under their benign management, but most of all the impact of wind and sea on the experience of living in the landscape of the north east of Scotland.

A Shakespearean Botanical by Margaret Willes published by the Bodleian Library. I got this from the globe Theatre in London, and it’s a very pretty book, a well-researched introduction to the herbs and flowers mentioned in Shakespeare. If you already know Gerard and Culpeper, there isn’t much new stuff in it, but it does have a teasing hint that Shakespeare might actually have known Gerard, as they were both protegés of the wealthy statesman Lord Burghley.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. Too well-known to need any introduction, I was blown away by the elegance as well as the power of her writing.

The New Diary by Tristine Rainer, kindle version published by First Person Press. This is an in-depth look at journalling that goes beyond the aspirational affirming style of more modern texts, to consider personality, memory and relationships in a way that could be playful as well as profound. As I’m dealing with some issues thrown up during the writing of The Well of the Moon – memory, family mythology, boundaries and isolation, I’m finding this level of consideration intriguing as well as helpful.

May 30, 2024

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