I keep saying I’ve finished the herb poems, and they still keep coming. In today’s Atrium you will find the one about costmary – the long grey-green leaved one in the centre, just behind the lavender stoechas. This picture might be familiar – it is one of the headers on the site, and the source for the silhouette on my business cards. Atrium is one of the best on-line poetry journals going, and I’m very flattered by being published there. I’m very fond of the poem too – it was longlisted for the Poetry Society competition on its first outing, which was a great honour.

And then, last night the inventive Objet-A Creative launched Becoming Botanical.

You can find out all about the project on the website, and even see the digital version, but I promise you, you’ll want the actual book. My poem, The Herb for Nightmares, is in it, and I was there to read it, along with Bradley Fairclough, who wrote about a fungus called cramp ball, which could smoulder gently for days, and was used to carry fire on long journeys, and Josh Armstrong, the director of the project. It was a very stylist event, sponsored by Botanist Gin, which formed the basis of some very classy cocktails. I don’t drink, so I had the soft version – a hawthorn blossom soda – it was amazing! I have never really like elder flower cordial, but I can see myself making one with hawthorn blossom next year. There was gorse, nettle and rhubarb too, all concocted by Josh, which I might have to try sometime too.

You can find out all about the project on the website, and even see the digital version, but I promise you, you’ll want the actual book. My poem, The Herb for Nightmares, is in it, and I was there to read it, along with Bradley Fairclough, who wrote about a fungus called cramp ball, which could smoulder gently for days, and was used to carry fire on long journeys, and Josh Armstrong, the director of the project. It was a very stylist event, sponsored by Botanist Gin, which formed the basis of some very classy cocktails. I don’t drink, so I had the soft version – a hawthorn blossom soda – it was amazing! I have never really like elder flower cordial, but I can see myself making one with hawthorn blossom next year. There was gorse, nettle and rhubarb too, all concocted by Josh, which I might have to try sometime too.

It’s been a miserable week for rain – though the garden needs it! But if the sun comes out tomorrow, I’m going to pick thyme for drying, before I go the the Red Squirrel Press launch of Peter Jarvis’ Land the Colour of Heat and Helena Nelson’s Branded in the Scottish Poetry Library, at 3 pm – later than usual, because of another booking. It doesn’t matter how much of this poetry stuff I do, I still seem to be all about the herbs!