you have to stop for this

This is so lovely, I just had too show it from India Flint.

Artist of the Week: Susan Kruse

I've had my eye on this blog for a while, but it all went quiet over the summer. Now Susan is back with an inventive series of drawings - some of which involve the very creative defacing of books.
Welcome to my Brain: Daily drawing

The Little fawn

We were at the Little Fawn Waterfall (at Aberfoyle) on Sunday. After all the recent rain, it wasn't so much a 'lithe leap' as a headlong rush, but it was very impressive all the same!

The sun is out today, although it is very cold, so I am hoping to finish planting bulbs and put the garlic in before the frost.

Artist of the Week - Gail Kelly

Gail Kelly produces woodcuts inspired by the landscape of her native Northern Ireland. You can find her work at Algan Arts.

Just a Thought

Image from Amazon.

Sometimes I get cross with Kenneth White.

and then sometimes amid all the cynical self-aggrandising and contemptuous ramblings (I was reading Across the Territories while I was on Islay) there's something so profound and incisive and inspiring you have to let him off.

Like this:

"the real is richer than the imagination --- The real demands investigation and is an invitation to sensitive knowledge --- then a relationship to the real and its resistance requires changes in thought, in ways of being, in ways of saying; it requires a transformation of the self --- how much more interesting an open and poetic process (is) involving contemplation, study, movement, meditation and composition." page 86

Now as I go on, I can see reservations building up. Kenneth White and I would have some major disagreements about what's real. He doesn't seem to think that much about human society is particularly real and he wouldn't have much time for my understanding of God as 'that which is most definitively real' - 'myth-malarkey' is the word he uses (and let us agree that there is a lot of myth-malarkey in what passes for religion in popular culture).

Also I'm fairly sure that there is deeper engagement in reality and more transformation of the self going on if you stay put, rather than being a nomad, and that dialogue between two (or more) people of alert and open minds might be as fruitful as an unaligned solitude, but I'm all for this process of relating to the resistant real. There's more joy in discovering the quirks and flaws and deviations and serendipities of a world which is given, than in designing a matrix that obeys the narcissistic whims of the human fantasy

Quiet Glasgow Night - Draft

I'm looking over some of the scraps of poems I've got lying about. This isn't on my usual beat, but before I get back there - poems about irises and archaeology and (probably) a lot of wet leaves, what do you think? The oddness of all those incidents haunts me.

Quiet Glasgow Night

The drunk man rails at the statue.
Waste of space. Tosser. Fanny merchant.
Fanny merchant. Fanny merchant.
Dewar stares doggedly down the street.

Three boys film the skater who jumps
the railings, meets the board,
crashes at the foot of the steps.
He shakes his wrist. His knees are covered
with blood and bruises. He jumps again.

Two phones deliver, “I'm on the train.”
The blonde opposite marks up a chapter
on problems designing steam turbines.
The metaller across from me
takes out a guitar, fills the carriage
with Smoke on the Water.

Artist of the Week - Carrie Osborne

There's a lot of whimsical faery artwork on the internet, but not all of it has the eye for detail and the solid grounding in the natural world of Carrie Osborne's. her children are not only pretty, but lively and humorous, and her blog includes some lovely photos and some incisive and interesting writing too.

Some grateful acknowledgements

While I was away, this post appeared on Michelle Mcgrane's informative and fearsomely well-read blog Peony Moon.

And on Friday Jody Porter from the Morning Star added this post.

I am delighted and honoured to appear in such company. Thank you to Michelle and Jody for including me.

Major Hiccup

Many apologies. I have hi-jacked my husband's computer for a minute to let everyone know that my own internet connection is no more (best guess, that the networking software is, to put it technically, 'gubbed') and until I get hold of a long cable or a new computer, I'll be out of touch. Back ASAP

While we were on Islay we visited the Community garden at Bridgend, where the local community has taken over an abandoned walled kitchen garden and turned it into a valuable resource. Volunteers work on the plots and the produce is sold in the shop, where they leave an honesty box.

there are plenty of the usual vegetables



and a large and well-stocked herb bed


but there is also a productive fruit cage, a polytunnel with tomatoes and peppers and butternut squash


and the garden has been turned into a pleasant open space for families to visit and for children to play



I was really impressed with the range and quality of produce available. The climate must be quite benign, but they've really made the most of it. It just goes to show what a community can do when they get the chance!



You may notice that the blog has been subtly enhanced in a way that is quite beyond me, or the resources of the blogger template. This is the work of Naomi Rimmer (yes, she is related, she is my daughter). If anyone would like her to do some design and coding work on their blogs or websites I wouldbe very happy to pass on her contact details