Dublin calling

This time tomorrow I shall be in Dublin since a whole day!
Cornucopia, walk around, soak in the atmosphere and the many tongues spoken there and the many faces from all over.
It is the Dublin Writers Festival and I am going to see friends and also to film performances.
Dublin calls about once a year...wish it was more often, but there is only so much time for all and everything.
Today I had my hair sorted out. It was one big birdsnest rasta horsetail! It took the kind women two hours to untangle! Now it is all straight, and two inches off length and fringe. The civilised look is for Dublin. Around here it does not really matter!
Seriously it doesn't, the sheep have the same coiffure as I!

Slaughter house

These long summery days do bring a wave of killing with them. That is very hard to deal with.
Our three cats are continiuosly hunting, baby bunnies and rodents mostly but occasionally a bird too.
It breaks my heart.
Myles is an awesome hunter and often shares his spoil with either Fergus or Luna. Whoever gets to the death room first. That is the back porch. We also have a killing chair where at night when we are asleep they go to crunch rodents.
The next day there is clean-up! We have by now quite a collection of bunny tails. Should I make a hat for winter?
This is the other side of having cats. We love them so much and they have a good life here but the wildlife around us do not.
After his feasting Myles usually has a very long digesting nap...before he is at it again. He even had a Daddy Longlegs for a wee snack the other day as he was lying in the shade.

I am enjoying this weather immensely given that the two previous summers were more like rainy winters. But the slaughtering...

The last day of the Merry Month of May

Today was the most beautiful day of the year so far!
Like a summer day, it unfolded from a warm sunny morning under a blue sky to a long day of blue and sun and a zephyr breeze.
The birds were ecstatic, the blue tits in the slate birdhouse were actively feeding their young and I discovered by chance that coal tits had a nest in an old rusty drainpipe by Robert the shepherds' sheep field. I thought they were in a gooseberry bush but it was in fact hiding the pipe!
A halcyon summer day if ever there was one. We did some laundry so it could line dry in the breeze and hot sun.
The cats were out all day and did not sleep for hours on end which they do during inclement weather.
I planted some calendula and lobelias, my Mormors favourites, along the path to the door. I also planted other plants that needed to go in now. The seeds are growing in leaps and bounds. I watered in the evening after the heat of the sun.
However the evening was light until way past 10 pm!
Lying under a tree looking up at the canopy and thinking/day dreaming I felt as though I was on vacation!
The lambs and the ewes have this sing song going on where the lamb first baas and then the ewe replies. It is really special to listen to because all the baas are different!
Once in a while I heard the horse down the lane make a sound like a humph, that and the pheasants, the dogs barking from other farms around and an occasional rooster crow made me feel like I was in heaven. Pure heaven on earth.
What a place this is! I love it when it is summery.
Yesterday I went to an oldfashioned village fete at Humshaugh at the Vicarage! The Vicar presided with the help of the local MP and wife. There were plenty of raffles, a plant sale, a rubber ducky pool, a book stall, bric a brac, cake competitions, and delicious teas on the Vicarage lawn surrounded by shrubs like lilacs and rhododendrons. I bought a euphorbia for a shady spot and three good books for a pound! A folk group named Canny Crack played Northumbrian music and children had their faces painted and danced. It was so much like the "Miss Marple world" I was practically waiting for the call and the hush after a body was discovered in the church or village hall. The Vicars wife was wearing periwinkle blue and a white hat and shoes. It was really a sweet afternoon apart from one oddity. There was a ferret run where children were supposed to guess which plastic pipe it would come out of. They were numbered and the sand coloured rather chubby ferret was first placed in a drum like thing and then the owner beat on the drum and the ferret started scrambling. Poor little thing and in that heat and noise.
I bet that ferret could not wait for the fete to be over.

So far

2009 has so far been very good to me in terms of productivity.

Firtsly, in January Bloodaxe Books' Alternative Anthem by John Agard came out with a DVD of a couple of his live performances which I had put together. It was a good accompaniment to the book because John is an amazing performer and it really gives an insight to his work to see him perform it. I enjoyed working on that very much.

Secondly, Life is IMMENSE visiting Samuel Menashe is a 66 mins DVD accompanying his book with Bloodaxe Books coming out in June. That film was a great challenge to make. From hours of incredible footage shot at his apartment in Manhattan last year I had to do what a sculptor does and that is chip away at the stone rather than add. It was very hard to select the material because everything was good. Samuel is great! In the end I feel quite good about the film and I think it does Samuel justice. It will be shown at Ledbury Poetry festival in July 2009. That is a wonderful full circle because that is where I met Samuel last year.

Thirdly, the next film is Borderline, a work in process, being shown in late June at a symposium on Northernness at Northumbria University organised by Ysanne Holt. I have been responding to Tarset where I live since I moved here and few years ago. Filming things that interest me and occur to me as very specific to here.
There are extremes I am trying to capture: Silence and Noise, Vastness and Claustrophobia, Beauty and Bleakness, Stillness and Busyness, Birth and Death...
It is an ongoing project and I can imagine that it will always be in process as I continue to respond to my surroundings in Tarset.

That is the first half of this year!

Eden Nede

I want to address the issue of the bucolic pastoral idyll that seeps through onto these blog pages!
From reading DJANG it most probably seems like an idyllic Eden here.
However...
In reality living isolated and so remotely rural can be quite challenging.
It gets lonely, especially when the weather is inclement and the great outdoors, the very reason to be here at all, is out of reach.
A car is a necessity, and errands take time since the nearest Market town is at least 20 miles away.
Any cultural events taking place let's say in Newcastle or Edinburgh is a serious drive, an expedition! Now add precarious weather to the equation...
For all that life is rewarding here. A closeness to nature and animals, a dependance on my own inner resources, a lot of time for creative work...
Still the isolation has its drawbacks. In winter especially.
This time of the year is glorious and autumn as well, with the fells draped in purple heather. Lambing season is wonderful!
The garden is a blessing to me and thanks to Bens help I can actually progress with it slowly by slowly!
The newly planted Braeburn apple tree has some blossoms! The cherry, plum and pear are settling in well. I am planning where to plant another gooseberry bush, the one I have is so happy here. Raspberry canes are all around and black currants thrive.
Meanwhile I am allowing and encouraging wildflowers to inhabit the "meadow" area.
The walks around here are very pleasant, each one with spectacular views of the North Tyne valley, varied terrain like woods, fields, river sides, and country lanes...
I do miss the company of good friends, good laughs and wonderful inspiring conversations.
The cats are lovely companions, no doubt about that!

The Rat

Today was the most glorious day so far this spring, it was warm and sunny and practically windstill.
Had my morning tea in the garden just simply enjoying the early morning sun. As I sat there quietly I noticed that a bluetit was flying in and out of the birch tree near me. Then I saw that is was going into the slate birdhouse I had placed near the roof and the drainpipe several years ago.
WOW! Our first bird family in the slate condo. So exciting, I had been concerned that I had hung it in the wrong place really with it being so close to the front door. But now I can sit on the bench sipping tea and observing the tit family! Hurrah!
Yesterday I brushed oil onto the wooden garden furniture; two benches and a table plus the latest addition a steamer chair. This is very comfy for reading. It smells really nice and should protect the wood for a while. The seasons are quite something around here with a lot of rain and wind. Many of the older trees have moss and lychen growing on them.
Lunch at the Rat Inn with Noah sitting outside in the sun and eating crab sandwiches with real chips, as they called them, with aioli. Yummy.
After that a motoring adventure around Corbridge to this place called Bywell where Basil Bunting liked to go for serenity and peace. It has two very old churches right next to eachother and we walked around the graveyards...Noah loves cemeteries.
In one a group of goths were having a picnic with a basket full of beer! Lovely site.
Had coffee at Noahs and cuddled Sofie and talked, we had a really nice family outing day.
I love exploring. Halcyon days like this are so rare in Northumberland. Tarset seems to have its very own micro-climate anyway.
Coming home makes me happy because I can be in the garden again. I laid out a blanky on the grass and spent time listening to the sounds and looking at the sky. The cats came to visit wondering what I was up to being horizontal rather than vertical as they are used to me being. Luna sat on top of me.
These days of spring are really a treat because every day there are changes in the garden and the nature around us. New blossoms appear as others fade, leaves become greener, and the countryside becomes more and more lush.
I want to enjoy them to the max.
Soon it gets busy again. Dublin for the Writers Festival in June, finishing a film for Northernness a symposium late in June etc.
I do feel fortunate to be able to do work that I enjoy and which is creative. Hopefully some of the things I have completed give something back like inspiration, encouragement and pleasure.

Still

Sitting on the bench outside the cottage door in the morning with a cuppa tea, when the weather is clement of course, I cannot help but marvel at how I can still enjoy the white tulips and the Queen of the Night ones standing amongst the Solomons seal.
I sit and contemplate there visualising the day ahead, looking at the birds help themselves at the Tapas Tree, which we have now placed in the forsythia bush for more protection from the elements and more sitting places too, much like a waiting room.
I also keep an eye on the cats wandering about exploring.
Sometimes the postie comes in his red van and I can intercept and get the post from him directly through the van window without him having to get out and placing it in the milkchurn.
Sometimes a pair of doves with ring markings around their necks come to feed, a pair of grouse and a pheasant couple come too. It is so cool that they are quite calm around me, sitting still on the bench with my tea.
Once a week I also have the local rag the Hexham Courant to read and catch up with local news, which is more like gossip, and events that may be on. I cut out articles and images of interest for a scrapbook. This will be my little bit of local history etc to show and tell!
Those tulips give so much pleasure, mornings and evenings and they have stood up against rain and wind and hail. Extraordinary.
The drive is orange from dropped berberis petals, all the windy rain does do that. The path is red from the quince petals.
These colours are so stimulating with the whites all around.
Sitting still watching, humming sometimes singing, is the treat of the day. Later I go inside and start work on the project of the time, looking out of the window on occasion.