Monkeying About The Secret Forest

I was emailing a colleague yesterday, when I realised that my husband and his friend were carrying large, carved, scary, wooden monkey through house. Is it me, or are such bizarre events increasingly commonplace in this household? Life grows ever more surreal.
Monkey, nicknamed Harrison, for reasons best known to Alan (possibly string of connections starting with Chewbacca, via Han Solo) is destined for the Secret Forest in Kelburn Country Centre, near Fairlie in Ayrshire.
Alan has a large number of his carvings there (and some of his paintings in the cafe as well). Every year, he has to replace a few of them, since they are pinched, by appreciative members of the public. Wish they would decide to buy them, rather than nicking them, but at least they like them. Says he is considering carving 'Stolen from Kelburn Country Park' into the back of them.
Harrison is intended to be scary, and has teeth like no monkey in life. He was transported to Troon Cruising Club, where he embarked on small yacht to be ferried to Largs Marina, by water. Husband and friend tell me they lashed him to the mast for the final leg of the journey. They also say that as they motored into the marina, there were many spectators, but nobody laughed. Find this hard to believe, but sailors sometimes take things (and themselves) very seriously. Harrison will be seen, shortly, by visitors to Kelburn.
Late yesterday afternoon, I joined the boat. Harrison had already departed for his new home. Boat is joint project of husband and friend. Old and rather nice Scandinavian built yacht, called Swedish Maid, which name always elicits giggles. Wonder why?
Always forget how much I dislike sleeping on small boats. Or not sleeping. Must down to the seas again, or perhaps not. Bang head all the time. Husband and friend are like two small boys, camping in the garden. They adore it all. Only remedy is to drink a lot of wine Once spent three months aboard a boat in the Canaries - but it was a 50 foot catamaran, that Alan was skippering for a charter company. It was wonderful. Sat and watched the harbour for days on end. Wrote an extremely romantic book called The Golden Apple. Came back pregnant. Nothing has ever really lived up to it since.

The Physic Garden

Finally finished another draft of the new play. Well, I use the word 'finished' loosely, since plays are never finished but hang around in your head, demanding to be tweaked. I suppose what I mean is that it really is time to stop for a bit, let it lie fallow, maybe let somebody else have a look at it - and come back to it in a little while. This is a two hander about William and Thomas. William is a gardener and Thomas is a doctor. The play is set in the early 1800s in Glasgow, and these were real people. I've called the play The Physic Garden for so long that I can't think of it as anything else, but still feel that An Uncommon Gardener may be a better title.
What is it about? The question every writer dreads. (Along with 'Are you still writing?' of course.) It's about an uncommon gardener and a lecturer in botany. It's about two men from quite different stations in life who are nevertheless friends. It's about (I increasingly realised as I wrote it) at least one of them loving the other, though in denial about it. It's also about botany versus anatomy, about a passion for green and growing things, versus the showmanship of dissection. It's about disappointment and the desire for success, about the fear of poverty and aspirations than can never be fulfilled. From this end of the process I realise that these are big ideas for what is really quite a small play - three longish scenes. Maybe I am trying to pour a pint into a half pint pot. Don't know. It may need to be longer and have more characters. But perhaps not yet. Of the two, William the gardener has become so real to me that I can see him move and hear him speak. So why is it Thomas that I find myself feeling sorry for?
These days, I write plays the way I used to write poems. I have this uncontrollable impulse to pare the language down and make line endings and rhythm and punctuation - or lack of it - matter. The shape on the page becomes important as well as the shape on the stage. Love doing it, love hearing these voices and seeing these people move, and love seeing what actors make of it (when I can!) but in the writing of it am like somebody feeling my way through a dark maze. Not sure where I'm going or if I'll get there in the end.

Bookshop Miseries

Rainy Glasgow. While waiting for my son, I wander round Borders books on Buchanan Street.
Am distressed and puzzled to find that I cannot see a single book I want to read, let alone buy. Why? It's like when you spend £100 at the Supermarket and arrive home with nothing you can actually eat.
Could it be because this seems to be so obviously somebody else's choice, so different from my own, so thoroughly Metropolitan that I just don't get it?
Or could it be because so many of them seem to be rehashes of the Last Big Thing in an effort to turn them into the Next Big Thing?
Notice that the trend seems to be for covers to look like vintage railway posters. Covers actually seem much more interesting than contents.
It must, surely, be me, faintly depressed, in rainy Glasgow.
The single book that draws my attention is a new translation of stories by Tove Jansson called The Winter Book. I dramatised her Summer Book for BBC Radio 4, way back when. It was a favourite of mine, and the producer alike, a masterpiece in miniature. It took us years of trying to get it through the BBC's suspicious defences. (A Finnish writer of children's stories? Who could possibly be interested?) I almost buy The Winter Book, but the queue is so long that I think better of it. Don't have twenty minutes to spare. Will probably find myself looking for it on Amazon, while lamenting the demise of the book shop.
There is a brilliant blogger called Grumpy Old Bookman. Realise that I am definitely becoming a grumpy old bookwoman.
Realise too that I find second hand bookshops (or those with an enticing mixture of new and old) far more congenial than the big chains. Which is some admission for a living writer to make. There is one in Wigtown called Readinglasses which is so wonderful that I'd be happy to live there for a while, browsing happily, fortified by their excellent home made bread and local cheese and fresh coffee.

Physic Gardens and Uncommon Gardeners

Spent most of yesterday afternoon working on new stage play. This began life as a play called The Physic Garden, set (more or less!) in the old Botanical Garden of Glasgow University, or the old college, in the city centre, as it was in the early 1800s.
The play started out as a 'two hander' - a dialogue between a gardener and one of the lecturers in botany - loosely based on real people. I was interested in the fact that the physic garden was dying, because the university had allowed a type foundry to be built right next to it - and the fumes were poisoning the plants. Also, the gardener was about to lose his job, in spite of the fact that he was a good amateur botanist.
Somehow had it in my mind that lecturer would be much older than gardener. Some very basic research revealed that in this instance, lecturer (also rather distinguished medical doctor)was only a very few years older than gardener. This helps to explain relationship between the two which emerges as something verging on friendship. Difference between them - socially - was vast. Intellectually not so vast - a matter of education. More research opens various cans of worms and nature of the play changes, as I write and revise it and write it again (printing out compulsively between drafts!)
Relationship between these two men becomes closer than I had intended. Dialogue between them starts to delve into differences (and tensions) between botany and anatomy. Botany, the study of plants (sometimes for medicinal purposes) was part of a medical degree back them and not an individual subject. But medicine was already heavily influenced by anatomy, the impulse to know what was going on inside the human body. And anatomy had not just its criminal side, but an element of showmanship about it. There were bound to be tensions between these two approaches. Almost in spite of me-as-playwright, this is what these characters are starting to discuss.
Then, quite by chance, I discover the existence of an old book which startles me, distresses me, and - in terms of the play - means another rethink. The contents of the book - provocative on any terms - would be part of the experience of at least one of these men, possibly both. The big 'what if' has to be asked again. It's what writers ask all the time. What if this happened? What if that were true?
Rewrites and more rewrites are needed. This started out as a play aimed at The Oran Mor in Glasgow - consequently quite a short play, 45 - 50 minutes. Suddenly it seems to have the potential for something much longer. What to do? Not sure, but possibly try to keep it short, initially, with the potential to expand it in the future.
Will it ever be staged? Not sure about that either. I'll give it my best shot, but am seriously considering posting plays on this blog, and/or on MySpace in any case. Frankly, would rather see them 'out there' than languishing in folders!

Looking for a Hero

Am fascinated by the way Nicola Sturgeon seems to have blossomed from rather grim nippy sweetie into elegant and occasionally smiling politician. There are Sturgeons in our village and they look so like her that can only assume she must be distant cousin. Nice to see young, obviously intelligent woman on political stage. Too many shabby grey suits in Scottish politics.
Still reflecting on recent events at Holyrood. The Blair /Iraq war effect played its part but think southern commentators still don't understand the nature of Scotland's discontent. Glance at results map in Herald (the only Scottish paper that didn't indulge in disgraceful pre-election scaremongering of the most apocalyptic sort) and am not surprised to see vast swathes of SNP support across Highlands and Islands, as well as nibbling away at Labour's 'heartland'. Jack McConnell was beginning to seem a bit too much like Labour's labrador, an honest man for sure, but too accommodating, too ready to fetch and carry for his Westminster masters. How could it be otherwise?
Many of us are looking for the political equivalent of a terrier to nip a few ankles. We want somebody to say no to nuclear - if we have to put up with coast to coast windfarms we don't see why we should have to have nuclear foisted on us as well - to put the brake on Trident, and to argue effectively with Westminster on a variety of issues. Alex Salmond seems to be the only Scottish politician with the strength of character, the general canniness, and - face it - the charisma, to do it. Anyone travelling any distance in Scotland, can see that governing this country is a completely different proposition from governing its over-populated neighbour. The priorities and agendas are, or should be, quite different. It remains to be seen whether the SNP can attempt it, or indeed whether the other parties will let them.
Wake to news that Labour Party may contest election in Cunningham North. This may be the rock they perish on, since it would open the floodgates to more legal challenges. Wasn't just Cunningham that was major cock-up and smaller parties would be right to make a fuss, since they are probably the ones who have lost most. If Labour want to push the electorate into full scale support for SNP this may be the way to go about it.
Notice that just about every second MSP questioned after election says 'The people have spoken...'
This reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) famous last words of an outgoing MP : 'The people have spoken... the bastards!' he said.
On this occasion, the people have attempted to speak but some of them have been silenced and in any case, many of the politicians don't seem to want to listen.

The Joys of Gardening.

Spend most of saturday, gardening, or in Dobbie's buying stuff for garden. Expensive but their plants are fabulous, well cared for, and ready at the right time, unlike the big DIY stores where everything is too big and too tired, much too early for local conditions. Have also had excellent half price bargains there, since enjoy nursing half dead twigs back to life. Prefer to grow things from seed, but am behind with everything this year, due to building work, writing work, etc, etc. Realise, while pushing trolley slowly down alleys of scented shrubs in brilliant sunshine, all by myself, reading labels with nobody harrassing me to 'get on', that I am perfectly, nay ecstatically, happy. Immediately worry that this too is a sign of impending seniority.
Ladies loo is full of grey permed heads, short polyester trousers and sensible lace up shoes. Realise that have strayed into middle of coach party. They run coach tours to garden centres these days and why not? This place has gifts, clothes, food hall, books, great cafe, as well as plants - oh and fish. Mustn't forget the fish. Used to visit something called long horned cow fish here - extremely friendly Disney-type fish with puckered lips and blue eyes - till it was sold.
Gardening is big time displacement activity for me at the moment. How can I sit in and write when there's so much to be done out there? eBay is also major d.a. but necessary and excusable since this is what pays most of the household bills these days.
Love garden very much indeed, but this time of year it's more slog than pleasure since we have huge patch at back of old cottage where everything seems to be flourishing. Rain last night, says husband, means that grass will grow like weeds. Also means weeds will grow like weeds.
Quite like weeds. Tend to leave rather a lot of them to flourish, to protect the wildlife that lives in the undergrowth. Well that's my excuse anyway.

Dreaming About Alex Salmond

For the first time ever, I confess it, I voted SNP. (Well, I think I did.) I didn't do it with any high hopes, I might add, but will vote for anyone who seems to care about (a) small rural post offices (b) small rural schools (c) local hospital services, all of which are seriously under threat hereabouts.
Find myself constantly enraged by way in which Labour Party (which used to be my party of choice) rabbit on and on about climate change while busily centralising everything they can get their hands on so that if we want to do anything whatsoever we have to travel. If the post office goes (and why wouldn't it, when they have taken away everything that made it profitable?) the shop will go as well. If the school goes, as seems increasingly possible, the heart will go out of the village. Meanwhile Accident and Emergency is going to be transferred to Crosshouse in Kilmarnock, many busy miles away, which already cannot cope with what it has.
Also, although Labour Party claims to care about the Arts, they want to be very much in control.Watching a politician trying to deal with writers and artists of all varieties is like watching somebody herding cats. Only those previously sedated can be handled with impunity. The rest have to be crammed spitting and screaming into small cages before they can do any damage.
Spend night dreaming about Alex Salmond. This was embarrassing and faintly disturbing, like when you dream that the queen comes to tea.
Wake to electoral chaos. This isn't surprising. Needed two degrees (which I have) to understand system. Yesterday I think I got my crosses and numbers in the right place, but folded paper when shouldn't have. Friend phones from Arran to say that it was his boat that broke down while taking ballot boxes to the mainland.
Realise that there is serious lack of coverage from Scotland on all available media. After an initial phone in about the election, BBC Radio Scotland has - I kid you not - Fred Macaulay wittering on, and some woman who has phoned in to sing a song. Cannot decide whether this confirms reasons for voting SNP - surely we should be able to find dedicated coverage from, in, by Scotland at this time in the morning - or reason for not voting SNP (breweries and organisation of urination therein )
Decide on former because cock up so obviously not their fault.
Alex Salmond is on afternoon news, talking about cock-up. Sounds reassuringly capable. Innate cynicism wars with desire to be able to trust somebody.
We await the final results with interest.

Cut Glass

Oh speak to me of things that do not matter.
Our friendship is a fragile thing
Speak too loudly and
It will shatter.

Each self is patterned with
The other self.
We are similar but not the same,
Surrounded with a tissue
Of touches now and then
Or compliments.
The light shines through us,
Is distorted.
We both pretend
Not to know
That this fragile thing
If subject to one outright blow,
Would shatter.

Take care.
Oh speak to me
Of things that do not matter.

Catherine Czerkawska, Edinburgh 1973.

Edinburgh in the 1970s.

The semi-hippy chick in the middle is me, back in the early seventies, in Edinburgh. There's a maxi skirt in there somewhere as well, although the bike is in the way. The guy on the right with the guitar is distinguished poet and novelist Andy Greig. Standing between Andy and me, with his hand on the bike, is poet and playwright Brian McCabe. (He's wearing a false face in case you're wondering.) On the left of the picture is somebody called John Schofield, who organised poetry festivals in Edinburgh way back then. The last I heard of him, he was involved with archaeology in the City of London. In front are two musicians from Fife, George (with another false face, beard etc) and John, of the cheekbones with the fag hanging out of his mouth. Cool. They were part of a band. My own writing on the back of the pic tells me that there was a Pete and a Dave and another Dave involved too, but I can't for the life of me remember who they were. I do know that John of the cheekbones (I think he was the one, but I could be wrong) wrote some brilliant music to one of my poems, called Cut Glass, which has come back to haunt me from time to time. More prescient than I ever imagined. I'll post it immediately after this.
Looking at it now, the thing that really strikes me about this picture is how modern we all look. You would expect a thirty five year old photograph to look dated. I suspect that this could have been taken on the Meadows (which was where we were back then) yesterday. John from Fife has a Paolo Nuttini look about him. Only John Schofield's too smooth leather jacket gives the game away.
If anyone out there knows what became of the band from Fife, I'd love to hear from you.
Browsing through Primark the other day was a deja vu experience. All those brightly coloured prints and smock tops. Dug out vintage Marimekko dress I brought back with me from Finland in the mid seventies. Felt strangely elated - and saddened - by rush of memories . Or as I wrote at the time: 'Take care. Oh speak to me of things that do not matter.'

On Crowning Glories and Shabby Chic

Have spent three hours and more money than I can really afford getting hair done.
But cannot afford to go about looking like tired old bat, not when women of a certain age become completely invisible. This doesn't mean that they don't enjoy themselves. Just that nobody younger than, say, fifty, notices them doing it. Don't really mind cloak of invisibility, but still have career ambitions, so a certain attention to appearance is in order.
Do NOT go grey, mum, says large Viking like son. I concur.
Meet acquaintance who says I look ten years younger with straight hair. Ponder this. How old does she think I am? How old do I look with hair in its usual messy mass? (Or should that be massy mess?) How old do I feel?
But she's right. Wavy hair, even naturally wavy hair, is curiously ageing. Rats. Will have to spend an extra half hour every morning drying hair.
Remember when I had clouds of long, dark, naturally wavy hair, so long at one time, that I could sit on it. Remember Irish boyfriend's mum saying 'You have lovely hair, God bless it.'
Sometimes I find myself dreaming about it and wake with regret.
Ponder girly things. Love, and have always loved clothes, handbags, shoes. Husband has been known to refer to me as the Imelda Marcos of Ayrshire.
Try to comfort myself by thinking of advantages of growing older in relation to all of above. Difficult. Still can't afford to shop where I would like to shop. Big Cheese at Writer's Guild once accused me of preferring to spend my money on 'clothes and cosmetics' rather than on exortionate yearly contributions. Since all of my clothes that year had come courtesy of Oxfam, I laughed, hollowly, before writing rude letter in response. Mind you, favourite jacket is still Italian pink wool lined with white silk creation, £5.00, courtesy of the British Heart Foundation. I was doing vintage before it became shabby chic.
Can only think of one distinct advantage of accumulating years. Have always adored vintage perfumes. (I buy them on eBay). Now, I can wear scents like Mitsouko and l'Heure Bleue, to which I have an almost alarming addiction, without feeling outclassed by the scents themselves. This only comes with age and a certain amount of confidence. More about perfumes in future posts.

The Outlook Express is Grim

Remember the old joke? (Well, not that old really...) There is no cock-up so great that a computer cannot make it a million times worse in a fraction of a second...
Two days ago, I managed to delete all the emails in my inbox in one fell swoop.
Now I don't know about you, but I keep various 'not answered yet but definitely need to be dealt with some time' emails in my inbox. Not, mind you, as many as my sister in law who had about 400 in there at the last count...
Disaster.
Where have they all gone?
Do I have an - aaaargh - VIRUS?
Run around like headless chicken for a bit, panicking.
Run compulsive virus scan.
Reassuring stack of zeros. Nothing found. Don't have virus.
Nothing in inbox either.
Check delete box. Those are gone as well.
Check all other possible files. Everything where it should be but no sign of contents of inbox.
Realise that - just around midnight and knackered beyond belief - I must have pressed the wrong buttons. Deleted whole inbox, and then deleted delete box as well.
Worrying thing is, don't remember doing it.
Calm down. Try hard to think what was in there. What was in there? Did it matter?
Not as bad as academic friend who inadvertently deleted six months unbacked up work in a few easy keystrokes.
Remember some of emails and their contents. Reply to them.
Bugger. Realise that have deleted email from Douglas King Smith (any relation of the more famous Dick?) who was trying to sell me advertising in a festival magazine on behalf of sculptor husband. Are you out there? If so, I have deleted you. Please contact me again!

Baby Mine Don't You Cry

Two weeks ago, took four year old Clio for its MOT, and came away with eighteen month old VW Polo in a beautiful shade of bright blue, instead. Car not quite so stylish inside as Clio, but salesman assures me this is German engineering versus French style.
Husband likes new car much better than old.
Salesman is family friend and categorically best salesman I have ever met. Also - worryingly - is accomplished player of card game called 'Cheat'. He once spent a week playing Cheat aboard small yacht with self and husband, and won all the time.
Am bereft without Clio. Had disproportionate love for Clio. Feel like someone acquiring new dog.
I have gradually come round. It drives well. It feels safe and solid. It looks sporty.
But most of all it has a CD player instead of a cassette player.
Upon which, I can play Alison Krauss, singing Baby Mine, to my heart's content.
This is the song that Dumbo's mum sings to him, when people have been mocking him about his big ears.
I saw this movie when I was very young. I cried. I also lost my mittens and we had to go back and look for them under the seat.
Later, my mum would sing the same song to send me to sleep when I had an asthma attack, and was wheezing my way through the night. Sometimes, she said, she couldn't tell whether the strange rattling sound was my lungs or the railway shunting yard down the road. That was in smoky Leeds, and I now have the peak flow of a woman half my age, thank-you for asking.
Later again, I sang my own son to sleep with it.
Now I drive along wondering where all those years have gone. Rest your head, close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine.

Strange Experiences with the Dundee Book Prize (Episode 2)

My novel The Curiosity Cabinet, started out as a radio play in three parts. I wrote it many years ago. Back then, I was an 'Award Winning' radio writer. Still have trophies, which are useful for hanging things on: rubber bands, bits of string, notes to husband... It was a very nice production, by Hamish Wilson, another Good Thing who sadly became surplus to requirements at the BBC (Moira Stuart by no means the first...nor will she be the last.) but I was dissatisfied with my part in it, ie plot, characterisation etc etc .
Years pass. In my spare time, I write it as a novel, changing everything about it including plot, characterisation etc. Rewrite it. Rewrite it again. Pare it down as far as I dare. Seems like poetry to me. But it's a love story. You know how critics, especially male critics, feel about love stories. Will anyone look beyond the love story to the poetry?
The setting is an island not a million miles from the Isle of Gigha. The Curiosity Cabinet of the title is inspired by a stunning Stuart embroidered box in The Burrell Collection in Glasgow. Box and contents link past and present day women. Wish owned similar box. Could sell it and write only what I want to write.
Lovely agent says she likes book very much so she sends it out. A string of encouraging rejections come back, the gist of which is that they like my writing very much as well, but the novel is too 'quiet' to survive in the bear pit that is modern publishing. Do more rewrites. Agent suggests entering it for Dundee Book Prize, biennial competition for new novel, with guaranteed publication by Edinburgh publisher, Polygon. Send in manuscript and promptly forget all about it. That was about 2004 though memory not what it was. Brain cells destroyed by age, frustration, white wine, sitting in front of PC for hours at a time...
Some months later, I am phoned by charming young man. Can I come through to Dundee to have dinner aboard the Discovery? It's very short notice, I say, huffily. If I'm honest, I can't bear driving all that way to applaud somebody else's success. Selfish I know, but there you go.
'You really should come', says charming young man. 'You will learn something to your advantage', he adds, sotto voce. No, I made that bit up.
Would genuinely love to see Discovery. Book last double room in Travel Lodge and go to Dundee with husband. Am royally entertained aboard wonderful ship, courtesy of Dundee Council. Have always loved this city, ever since I lodged with the parents of a friend in Broughty Ferry while I was working as community writer for the Arts in Fife and looking for a flat. Realise that was back in the late 1970s. God, have I really been writing for such a long time?
Husband eats in the Travel Lodge and then wanders over to ship where - like a Dickensian hero - he can watch us favoured folk being wined and dined. Somebody apologises for exclusion of partners. No room.
Husband gets illicit glass of wine on deck. I am one of three writers: the others being Claire Collison and Malcolm Archibald. We are entertained by two of the judges: Ian Rankin, and a broadcaster / journalist whose name I have shamefully forgotten, but who totters up and down the gangways, wearing the highest pair of killer heels I have ever seen. Mind you, doubt if she would remember me either. There are assorted dignitaries. And a couple of people from Polygon. Poet John Burnside, the third judge, and somebody I very much wanted to meet, isn't there. He liked my book, love story and all.
Ian stands up and makes an encouraging speech, of the 'work hard and you too may one day be up here, judging the work of others' variety. We three compare notes afterwards, and realise that we have all spent long years on various forms of writing : plays, history, articles, poems, etc etc as well as - possibly - far too much time judging the work of others for workshops, competitions, literary awards...
But perhaps that's the problem. All of us are 'tainted by experience' to quote a friend of mine, another ex-BBC producer . That's how come we can write a proper full length novel. What they are looking for is the emerging genius, young, clever, preferably beautiful (female) or provocative (male) and unexpectedly brilliant. What they get, year after year, is people who are just writers.
Gist of evening is that a decision has been taken to publish all three books instead of one. So no final winner is to be announced yet. (Why? Could the judges not agree?) Once published, they will be circulated in proof form to various book groups throughout Scotland (which?) These groups will vote on final winner who will get the dosh. (Is this not shifting goalposts in mid comp? Didn't know we were going to be subject to the vagaries of Book Groups.) Bemused, I rejoin husband at Travel Lodge for nightcap. What is going on? See the next thrilling installment as soon as I can remember it. It seems like an awfy long time ago.....