It must be in the stars...

The Bull Mask in Newton Stewart Museum


Now he sees what
the bull sees: two dim
curved worlds.
He swings his head
and now and then
a horn of daylight splinters
from the edge.

The wayward laws of serendipity have introduced me to artists Jo Hodges and Robbie Coleman, who have been appointed artists in residence for the Galloway Dark Skies Park and Galloway and South Ayrshire Biosphere.

The Forest near the Buchan Burn


...We breathe in oak air, laced
with draughts of peat and the sudden
swing of a jay.

My new collection, 'The Dark Farms', published by Roncadora Press, will be launched with a reading at Wigtown Book Festival on Wednesday 3 October, as part of the Festival's Dark Skies strand.   I had a great meeting with Jo and Robbie, who are planning a variety of curious and interactive ways to introduce the Dark Skies Park to festival-goers, and we're developing a collaboration which looks really exciting.  For more click here.

I spent 8 months of 2011 walking in the Forest, exploring ruins, talking to residents, poring over old maps and books and (while dodging some of last summer's rain) delving in Newton Stewart Museum.  I became completely absorbed by this remote, roadless place where hill farming is shrinking back off the high ground, and farms are abandoned, in some cases disappearing completely, except for a placename on a map, under the commercial forest plantings that have been put in during the second half of the 20th century.  The nights are very black, and very starry, with an extraordinary lack of light pollution.

Bricked up farm at Glenhead

...I touch raw breezeblock

mortared where the panes should be.

The same for every window, every door.

In every room, the dark's walled in.

Locating the Nest through the Trambles

In Edinburgh's almost-sunshine, on the final day of the exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens, we finally went, hauling along our sceptical teenagers.  But do you know?  They liked it.

Locating the Nest has been a collaborative exhibition involving willow artist Lizzie Farey, artist and publisher Hugh Bryden and poet Tom Pow.  It was one of Tom's great ideas, born out of his perambulations around Europe in search of dying villages.  As Tom says in the introduction to the beautiful little book that accompanied this exhibition: "I see... that nests too concern themes of home and abandonment".

In the darkness/ darkness thickens/ the nest made whole
Tom Pow 

Unravel a nest

Think of the abandoned

Many nests
Hugh Bryden

A nest almost indiscernable
Lizzie Farey

Nest becoming crannog
Lizzy Farey

Ah.  The Trambles.

#bookspinepoem #2. There was no stopping me.

Not a very optimistic poem.  But kinda intricate.

#Bookspinepoetry

I'm inspired by the Scottish Book Trust's #bookspinepoetry!  What fun at Unbound. Look what a very irresponsible romance a few minutes entertaining thought by the bookcase produced last night.

Thornhill - where nicknames meet fonts over coffee

Today I nipped into lovely Thomas Tosh in Thornhill to catch a wall of fonts and dreadful puns.  'Local Types' is the creation of Hugh Bryden, which he bills as "some nicknames from Thornhill and the surrounding area, visually interpreted".  Local Types is still stuck to the wall until 14th July, and you would like it.

The dignified exterior of TT on a grey July afternoon

Local Types in all their splendour.  Excellent coffee too.

John 'Nails' Findlater: he nibbled them off

Nicknames better than carbon dating

Buy one!  They're only cheap.  Smile through your excellent coffee.

Who says life in the country is slow?

A Latecomer to Towel Day 2012 - but time is relative, we know

I have just discovered (via that excellent blog Trapped By Monsters ) that on 25th May the world was celebrating Towel Day, in honour of the late, great Douglas Adams. It was first celebrated two weeks after Adams' untimely death in 2001, and now on 25th May each year fans around the universe proudly carry a towel in his honour.

I am charmed.

My youngest has just discovered Douglas Adams, so we've been sharing The Universe of an evening.  So many wholly useful concepts.  Vogon Poetry, for example.  Who has not sat squirming through some?  The Towel itself, never a better measure of personal competence: 'There goes a frood who really knows where his towel is.'

I've always thought of this as the ultimate goal of a good feminist bringing up sons.

Towel Day in Innsbruck

Innsbruck - where Mr. Adams had the idea for the 'Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'.  Innsbruck??

A Wet Tuesday Lunchtime in Wigtown

In which I pottered in the drizzle, between meetings and before lunch in Reading Lasses, taking photos.  How beautiful Scotland's Booktown is.  Don't you think?

I've been a bit obsessed by it for years, and for years been writing a children's novel based there.  I've nearly finished it.  It's kind of instilled Wigtown into my bones.  Though then again, it's a Wigtown that isn't quite Wigtown.  I've got the weirdest mental map that overlays reality without any conflict at all.

One of the best things about Wigtown is its wear and tear.

What I like best about this portico is its hefty electric cable.  On the other side there's a big white rusty box that looks like a heat pump.  (To me, which may well mean it's something else).

'The pattern of the railing reflects great credit upon the taste of Mr Smith, its designer, for though not gaudy, it is both ornamental and strong.  It has eight lamp-posts at regular distance around it.'  Records of the Town Council, 23rd October 1810.
Sadly, no lamp left, just graceful ruination.

Nothing ruinous about Wigtown though.  Great lunch in Reading Lasses and I bought a book in the Old Bank Bookshop.