2012

It's probably too late to wish everyone a Happy New year, unless, like me, you hibernate. Out in the fresh air this morning I see it's time to wake up: there are buds on daffodils, celandines are opening, the hellebores and snowdrops are almost past their best, and the birds are busting a gut with singing.

In my garden is a bush I am very proud and fond of - it's the Christmas Box, or Sarcocca (awful name!) which produces highly scented clusters of tiny whitish flowers in January to February. The scent follows you round the garden: the flowers are full of pollen and early bees love it. Imagine my surprise then when I invited a friend to smell it and she reeled back, exclaiming "Ugh, foul!" Well, yes, it is quite strong, I agree, but if you want to attract any passing insects at this time of year you have got to be a bit outrageous.

Which makes me think of poets and the need or otherwise to self-publicise: few of us have agents to do this for us, and some of us are very good at it and some of us are not. I and a friend have been discussing this and wondering what we should/could do to increase our visibility: after much consideration that we 'should' be on Face book, Twitter, Linked-in, My Space and any other space, I felt the whole idea sounded so full "of sound and fury", and possibly so time-consuming that I have retreated instead to my cosy little blog. I am not against any of these facilities, no, not at all but I simply don't have the energy at my point in life to spend on them. It's enough as Michael Symmons Roberts has said to focus on the work.

On the other hand I quite like posting on this little blog. Occasionally friends read it, and though they don't post comments they might send me an e-mail as Joan Poulson recently did, saying that she found my blog uplifting. Which I treasured as a very great compliment indeed. Thank you, Joan!

and this is it!

Hawthornden

Delighted, and dizzy, to hear I've been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship for 2012....
A month in a castle to write, and what a castle!!

Permissions

I mentioned the poem chosen for the NPD educational resource in my last blog; it struck me after posting it that I had not been told by Jan Fortune at Cinnamon Press that the poem had been asked for. Unusual; Jan is very efficient. So I enquired, and she had not been approached. So then of course I enquired of NPD itself and received fulsome apologies.
It's very careless to post someone else's poem publicly without their express permission, and this is the first time this has happened to me. I've had poems asked for by Martin Halsall of third way magazine, Tina Ballantine of Mixed Nerve, Abegail Morley for the New Writer and her blogspot, and twice by people involved with cancer or healing projects: Sally Givertz asked if she could use a poem for a workshop and a friend asked for the use of a poem for a cancer support website. Among others. But always permission has been sought.
So, writers out there, be vigilant! If you find someone using any or part of your work without your permission, tackle them about it.

Games

I have just discovered that a poem of mine is being used as a teaching example for 9-11 year-olds on the theme of Games, this year's chosen topic for National Poetry Day. The poem is "Football, Kuala Lumpur - you can find it on the Education link of the National Poetry Day website, or in my book "The Plucking Shed" (Cinnamon Press).

Alas, I am too tired to post it here at this moment; I'm just back from Cumbria, a trip that was a very generous birthday gift from my friend Ann. We went in her motor-home and I took my small dog along. The only game we played was "Quick! Stop the dog from getting out!" every time we opened the door. For an old dog - Asha is almost 16 - she's very nippy.

We had three days of very mixed weather- we visited Aira Force in the pouring rain and as we were coming down (once, of course, that we were soaked through!) the sun came out and created a double rainbow in the torrent of spray. Stunningly beautiful. We also had the great good luck to see a red squirrel, the first I have ever seen so I was thrilled - that alone was a perfect birthday gift so thank you, Ann, for making that possible!

Home sweet home

Well, after the hurly burly of a wedding there is nothing like home. And there's my favourite sofa .....

CLOTHES, MAKE-UP, HAIR = WEDDINGS!!

It was my youngest daughter's wedding this month and I don't need to state that she looked glowing, radiant, and wonderful. Of course she did!
Even I underwent the - for me - doubtful pleasures of make-up and hair-do. I usually prefer the good fresh air on my skin, unimpeded by cosmetics. But it was a wedding and so I sat obediently in the make-up artist's chair and watched while she took years off me (I have since got them back and that's fine!) She was tactful, gentle, and very good at her job and while I was sitting there I remembered another Artiste in the world of female glamour who had been equally gentle and good at his craft.

For he was a man, in Malaysia, in Penang in fact; he was what the Malays called a Lady Boy. They're a very special kind of transvestite with wiles and ways that truly out-feminine the feminine. This one was so delicate in his touch; he had immaculately manicured hands with long fingers and exquisite pink nails; and at these elegant and gentle hands I had the best haircut ever, and also the best hairdressing experience of my life. He did not begin with washing my hair, but rather by soaping it with shampoo and then applying massage to the scalp and also - interestingly - to the ears. I had no idea the ears were such a sensory zone but after a short time of his stroking the outer shell and then cleaning daintily with his nail the inner channel I was ready to fall apart I was so relaxed.

I've never known a hairdresser in the UK do this but it's brilliant. In fact this was a far better way of taking years off a person than make-up! I came out of that shop looking good and feeling good.

So much so that when my daughter and I returned to our modest hotel, by taxi, because I had a severely damaged foot from falling off a ferry, the staff rushed to help carry my shopping for me. You might think that was on account of my terrible limp but I think not since we'd been staying there already three nights and been thoroughly ignored.

Ah well, unlike Frank Churchill in Jane Austen's "Emma" who goes flying off to London for a - supposed -haircut I cannot expect to fly off to Penang for mine so memory will have to suffice!
And finally, needless to say, the wedding was wonderful, the best and most relaxed wedding I've ever attended and I was not alone in saying that. I have "fallen apart" since in the best posible way - crumbling into a soft heap of fragmented meringue with no intention of putting myself together again just yet. I am quite enjoying myself as a collapsed meringue on the floor....