The fog’s so thick up here today I can barely see my nose.

“Don’t exaggerate,” says the Other One, pointing out the thistles in the field, “unless, of course, you’re under the illusion your nose extends beyond the dung heap in the farmyard, and even I wouldn’t say your nose is that big.”

I take a deep sniff. I can smell eco-cleaner (it’s cleaning day). Point taken.

But aren’t writers allowed to exaggerate? Isn’t that what fiction is supposed to do? But where does fiction meet fact in the novel today? When is the reader happy to suspend disbelief? And, who is to judge what is truth or otherwise?

Yesterday a potential editor pointed out that a certain situation in my new novel could not possibly happen, thereby destabilizing its premise. But actually, that situation did happen. To us. Except, of course, I’ve changed the characters, location, the plot….you know how it goes.

So how to convince a reader to enter a world that the writer creates and stick with it, for the sake of a good story? That’s the hard part. J.R. Tolkien managed it. So did J.K. And Bram Stoker. What about writers who write more realistically? Atwood, Dunmore, Gordimer? You can bet your bottom dollar, any novel I care to mention could be opened at a page where somebody might say, “that couldn’t happen”. It’s whether the reader cares whether it did or not.

So, my foggy day morphs into a lovely sunny day at the local garden centre…

 …and my protagonist becomes a rather grumpy caterpillar named Cecil…

Also, I think I have something in common with Pinocchio and might now just be able to smell that dung heap…

Just went on to my site admin for a routine clear-out of spam messages, and what do I find? Oozing with messages about anorexia and menopause! Another instance of “the world out there”  asking you to buy into health fears. Because Health is big business.

I may be slim-ish, but I have a normal appetite and have absolutely no hang-ups about food, thanks to my wonderful mother who brought me up on a diet of proverbs, such as “a little of what you fancy does you good” and “everything in moderation”, not to mention “eat your greens”! When I was a child, brown bread was always on offer, as well as white, and plenty of fruit, whether cooked or raw.

Nevertheless, spammers seem to seize any opportunity to join in health-hype in order to crank up a health-anxious nation. Straight into the trash for them! Even Radio 4 and the NHS could be found guilty of publicising every small research project that suggests unless we’re super-vigilant, we may imminently die of something dreadful, with a conflicting piece the very following week asking us to do the opposite. Perhaps we all need to calm down and merely be a little more sensible. Am I being irresponsible taking the view that if the statistic that one in two of us will die of cancer is mainly because science has moved on and we now can label illnesses that have been killing us for centuries. After all, we’re all going to die of something. That’s life, as it were. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting we should all smoke, take drugs, exist on a diet of doughnuts, chips and ice-cream and have unlimited, unprotected casual sex, not to mention sit on the sofa all day long.

All I’m saying is, why not let’s be independent about this? Hang out a little, rather than get hung up. As for menopause, well, I’m taking that one step at a time…

I was in London this week to take a look at the Serpentine Pavilion, amongst other things. Secreted away in this quiet-ish spot in Kensington Gardens, we spy it through a mass of summer foliage. From here, it looks like a rather elaborate Glastonbury tent…

…or is it a ravenous giant caterpillar opening its jaws to swallow us up for ever?

Designed by studio selgascano (founded by, yes, you guessed it, Madrid-based Selgas and Cano) this flamboyant offering celebrates the fifteenth year of pavilion “shows” – where international architects are invited to build their first structure in England, a 3-D calling card, you might say.

It’s an elaborate café-space of translucent plastic sheets and ribbons accessed through various tunnels, echoing London’s tube network and people’s daily pathways…and for  a comparatively small structure it offers a myriad of different visual effects…

Transparency and reflection, distortion and accuracy intermingle with angle…

…with some weird interactions with the occupants…

Whilst plastic is not a favourite material of mine, preferring biodegradable and natural, in my opinion this has a definite artistic merit, playing with concepts of secret and journey, as well as encounter and response. Catch it if you can. Free entry (with suggested donation) and on till 18th October, though if you want to take a look at the gallery at the same time, avoid Mondays. Unfortunately, I didn’t!

Did I mention that when we moved into our house almost two years ago there was the remains of an old upright piano dumped outside the fence?

What else can you do than use such an item to express yourself? I don’t think Beethoven would have been all that impressed, but I thought the metal structure would be just the thing for the new flower bed…

So, with the help of some wooden stakes, we positioned it au centre…

…and began to plant a few things around it…

Rather foolishly, we removed the wooden soundboard, finding the visual aesthetic more pleasing without it. It meant that we lost the acoustic aesthetic. Nonetheless, the wind had a field day, and we ended up chaining the piano into place. We surrounded it with honeysuckle, clematis and poppies as unsolicited as most of my manuscripts…but right now it’s really beginning to take shape…that is, if you like rather unusual garden sculptures…

Is there a castle in Newcastle? I know the Rugby World Cup is happening here this year, and I’m not a complete stranger to the city. Yet previous visits didn’t provoke the question. Until now, that is. Oh yes, I’ve gazed at the Sage…

and walked through the shopping streets…

visited the Baltic and the Laing, wondered over windows…

…attended work events and interviews…. And on Wednesday I made my way to the Scrumpy Willow and the Singing Kettle and the delights of Newcastle’s literary salon, hosted by Ben Aaron Macleod and artist Juli Watson…

The theme of the evening was Dark and Light to coincide with the week of the solstice. I had no problem coming up with something appropriate to read. It’s a broad notion, and my Fibonnacci Sequence is practically all shadow and sunshine, in a dark way, you understand…

So, emerging after a couple of hours of literary edification, just as the light was beginning to fade, we try for the most direct route back to the car, and lo! Here’s the answer to my question…in all its light and dark…

Silly me! I guess I’ll have to look up the history now…

At any rate, I might as well have done, such is the alacrity with which I head indoors to tell the Other One…and the gestation period has been almost as long.  You see, my gardening style is somewhat haphazard – it has to fit in with all the words that keep insisting on pouring out into endless word docs. As a consequence, the veg patch, including this cauliflower, has been neglected. Like all good farmers, I also blame the weather. Too cold, too dry, not enough sun.  However, here it is, small but perfectly formed, as they say. Almost as small as the two mangetouts here, which is the sum of today’s harvest.

If we’re to rely on this self-sufficiency lark, looks like we might have to go on a diet. Except for one thing – I’m still not a bad hand at baking a loaf of bread…

For a while there I was under the impression that writing about our floral heritage was about as fashionable as darning socks. At least, if you’re wanting to be up with the now writers, you might think there’s not much mileage in a Dwarf Cornel. And yet, Nature Writing still has its place. I love Hughes’ poems, Pike and The Thought Fox. Reading the Flower Poems of Jon Silkin are a wonderful meditation. And many Not-Dead-Poets are still producing magical responses to the natural world in which they find themselves, such as Carole Satyamurti’s Explaining Zero Sum from the Snowdrop Hotel. For me, the whole categorising and sub-categorising thing seems an academic exercise. If a poem speaks to you, does it really matter what kind of a poem it is? Isn’t the point to keep your mind open and listening?

Needless to say, yesterday’s naturalists’ walk, led by a local botanist, certainly stimulated the poetic juices. So many beautiful species, including chickweed wintergreen, black medick, ladies’ bedstraw, marsh orchid and common spotted, as well as the dwarf cornel. Of course, like many species of wild flower, my poem about the Dwarf Cornel will take time to germinate and grow, though the seed is already firmly embedded in my notebook.

Just returned from a trip to see the Irish relatives, and also to introduce my 92 year old Mum to the delights of the North Antrim Coast. The idea had been to go at this time of year because the weather would be warm, and, at worst, soft, as the Irish say. And, I have to admit, on the first walk along from Ballintoy Harbour (now of Game of Thrones fame), the weather almost smiled at us. Apart from a wind fit to freeze your eyeballs, that is.

It appears that the temperature had not kept the crowds away from the Giant’s Causeway either.  A shy poet might be driven to hiding amongst the Organ Pipes…‘ Course, Finn McCool beat the Game of Thrones to North of Ireland, but you almost wouldn’t think it. All of the old haunts seem to have been hijacked for the purposes of Robb Stark’s adventures. At least it sucks potatoes off their couches and out into the more than fresh air.

We still managed a deserted beach or two…

And the lovely River Bann*…

…before settling down to a Bushmills’ welcome with traditional peat fire and attempts at drawing a smiley in a Guiness…

   Cheers!

* [Bann photos courtesy of Valerie McKnight]

Bob Beagrie and Andy Willoughby have achieved a fascinating read. I hesitate to assign this volume to the nomenclature of “poetry collection”, because these poems are so much more than that. Folklore, legend, history and social commentary interweave, and, like all good poetry, the more you pick at the threads, the more colour you find.
You don’t need to know about the Finnish epic poem Kalevala to enjoy the poetry – the imagery is bright and immediate, such as in Bath Time where “the gurgle of the plumbing”, “the sea’s muffled voice” and “beady black eye in the spider plant” summon the imagination. However, the useful notes both in the Forward and in a glossary at the back help to draw the uninitiated into an entire world. Rightly so; these words are based upon a creation myth. We’re talking big ideas here.
The main thread of the story follows Vainamoinen, the so-called Old Man of Wainola, a shaman-style figure who was born of the ocean after seven years in the womb (by sheer coincidence, or, more likely, the magic of poetry, this resonates with my own poem Seal Man*). The search for Sampo is on; a magical artefact which will bring healing in the same vein as the Holy Grail and other epic-story quests. The voices vary from the Old Man himself, through the young and luckless girl, Aino (to whom the Old Man is pledged and who runs away and drowns), to the hornet who poisons the iron at the forge, ensuring iron ever after would be thirsty for blood.

But this isn’t some old fairy tale to consign to history; the modern day is here every step of the way, from iron mining’s legacy of ill-health and death for its workers (“you hear the voices of crushed miners”) in The Quest through to car theft and vandalism in Walking in Circles. This is the voice of the North, sung in varying rhythms and forms, from sestina in Battle Rune to the delightful loose poems of Flotsam and Jetsam which float in and out of the series, just as their name suggests.
The style, too, is eclectic. You may wonder how such lines such as “an eagle’s flight among the clouds” can sit comfortably with “Nice One!/So muggings here says just show me to the anvil.” Somehow the reader has to allow it to work, just as, at times, the Kalevalan metre seems to jar with an English ear more easily attuned to iambic pentameter. The poems are full of wit, with lovely accessible titles, such as “The Trouble with Wizards” and “Be Careful What You Fish for”, with a constant theme that dips in and out of time, leaving the reader feeling kind of timeless, kind of afloat. Very apt for a work inspired by the creation myths.
And just as in the tradition of the Finnish stories, these poems are to be celebrated orally, with a feel for depth, whilst managing to avoid elitism. If you haven’t already, see if you can catch Bob and/or Andy in one of their live readings.
Another triumph for Northern writers. This is definitely a book that promises to make a mark!

Sampo : Heading Further North is available from Red Squirrel Press

*Silcock A.J (2014) Seal Man in Taking Responsibility for the Moon. Teesside:Mudfog

A week so far, full of days worthy of International Women’s week. Take yesterday, for example. Routine breast scan. The NHS seem to think it’s OK for me to travel 100 mile round trip to attend this. And in the interests of my health, I concede.  Humph. Compensated, however, by the usual wonderful standard of sizzling fajitas at Plunkett’s in York. The sassy chilli sauce was a most necessary armour against the bitterly cold winds whipping around the cathedral. No wonder York was so quiet. Out of Plunkett’s, and hot-foot into the snug ambiance of the Exhibition Hotel. Yes, it’s the Spoken Word evening. The room’s packed, listening to the vibrant Rose, MC, introducing an eclectic mix of verse, performance poetry and story. I threw a couple of poems into the pot. The literary scene here certainly seems alive and kicking!  And tomorrow, it’s off to Durham for the Poetry Jam, Waddington Street, starting at 7pm. Yay!