Groundhog Day

Image: Slate.com

Happy Groundhog Day! Although this is mainly an American and Canadian custom, I love the whole idea of it. Punxsutawney Phil comes out and if he sees his shadow, we get six more weeks of winter. As it turned out he did see his shadow, but looking out my window today it didn’t take a small beaver-like animal to be able to figure that one out!

Book Sculptures
Back when I was a southsider in Glasgow, living in my little bachelor pad in Shawlands, the area was starved of coffee shops, book shops and the like. But then, I was really only interested in pubs and clubs in those days so it was irrelevant.

A few years after I moved out of my flat in Skirving Street a book shop opened just a few doors along. How that would have been ideal for me, because it followed on from the opening off a Beanscene across the road. Had that all been in place before I upped and left for Leith, I may not be writing to you from the east coast of Scotland today.

Anyway, you’ll have heard about the mystery sculptures that were found across Edinburgh during the summer. Well as it turns out, Young’s Interesting Books has one in its window! It’s of a sculpture made from a book of a tree sheltering a piano and furniture, and you can read the full story over at Susannah Radford’s brilliant blog.

Poetry Performance
I’ve been working heavily on getting a routine together for my up-coming poetry readings. I thought at first I might struggle for suitable poems to fill a whole hour, but once I’d worked through them all and worked out a line to approach the performance, I could see that I probably had pulled out too many. 103 to be exact!

So I’ve decided on a theme, (or a line of attack, whatever you want to call it), and I’ve written out the fillers to each of the linking sections – this includes some jokes (I intend to entertain my audience as well as have them listen to my poetry!) – so all I need to do now is put it all together and then try it out.

There’s no nerves yet, but I know there will be. I think not having an actual date set is helping keep me calm, and on the night I’m sure I’ll find my own way to stay relaxed and focussed. I’m really looking forward to it, but then that might all change after the first rehearsal or when I get up onto that stage!

Fiction Work
The final rewrite on BACCARA BURNING is now in progress and work also ongoing with GATECRASH. The latter has been slower than I hoped but that’s due mainly to the level of complication within the plot. It’s by far the most complicated novel I’ve written to date, but that’s the part of it I’m enjoying with this one. I love all the characters and the story is great, but more importantly for me, the first draft when it fell to the page was a good one. Always helps!

Sad News
It’s -7 degrees C outside and Europe, never mind Scotland, is going through a big chill. It’s at times like this I normally put out heat pads for my bunny to keep her going through the winter. You microwave the pads for 10 minutes and then the bunny can sit or lie on them for the whole night.

Except that my last remaining bunny died a couple of weeks ago. Pippin died of old age – she was at that stage – but it was still sad to see her go and join her sister, Mopsy. I miss not having them to play with or bring into the house for a cuddle and a heat.

*sniff*

Thanks for reading – until the next time…