Quotidian

Lost and found in the Spring garden

It has been a long, hesitant, process.

I look back at my diary and photographs over the two months since mid-February, bemused by the intermittent unfurling of Spring 2024, here in south west Scotland. Delayed by days and days of rain. Held up by low temperatures and with winds ‘like a whetted knife’. Hindered by the persistent chill of the wet earth.

Yet curiously it’s made for a good experience. I’ve realized that Spring is not just about the excitement of new growth. There’s also the matter of balancing expectations. For like it or not, Spring in the garden is about both disappointments and pleasures.

On the negative side of the balance sheet come the frustrated hopes. I think of the 60 allium bulbs of the variety, Purple Rain. They produced an astonishing display in their first season. This year all that’s to be seen is a clump of indifferent leaves. No flower buds in sight.

Likewise the clutch of Erythronium bought last year at Hidcote Manor, my all-time favourite garden. Carefully planted in a new border that we see from the kitchen window, all that’s on view at the moment are a few tattered leaves and a single white flower, albeit rather elegant.

Over the years, I can think of various splendid plants that were nowhere to be seen come the Spring. Here are a few from memory: Fritillaria, Colocasia, Arisaema, and Penstemon. Also shrubs and trees that never again came into leaf, like Japanese Maple, various Rhododendrons, and the dead stems of Eucalpytus and Cordyline. Winter victims all, that never made it to Summer.

Cicely y David: my play in Spanish

At the end of a beautiful spring day in Pamplona, northern Spain, I am in a local theatre, waiting for the curtain to come up on Cicely and David, my play about the early origins of modern hospice and palliative care. A niche topic, certainly, but 250 people have come along to this Spanish premiere of the work, and the actors are full of nervous energy, eager to hit the stage.

The story within the play explores how in 1947 a newly qualified social worker, Cicely Saunders, became involved in the care of a dying Polish émigré, David Tasma. Their encounter in a London hospital over just a few months, was to shape the foundation of a future global movement to transform end of life care.

The story of how I come to be here in Pamplona goes back to when the play was first performed and filmed in a student production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2022. For when that five night run of Cicely and David was over, I had no idea of the directions the play would soon be taking.

Within months, screenings were happening in Germany, Argentina, Slovenia, and the Netherlands, as well as at various locations in the UK. The film was being shown in various settings – at palliative care conferences, as part of public engagement activities and also on training events.

The performance in Pamplona represents a milestone for Cicely and David. For now, a new stage production is happening – and in Spanish.

A direct line to Paradise

Newly arrived from Virginia, Henry and Charlotte were entranced by Westminster Abbey. They had just spent two hours immersed in this Gothic-inspired royal church, full of tributes, memorials, the graves of remarkable people, and not least, with its wonderful mellifluous bells.

It already felt like this was going to be the holiday of a lifetime. A small group of friends on a guided tour of some of the finest churches and cathedrals in Britain, and this only the beginning. Slightly jet lagged, yes, but totally enthralled by the Abbey, they gathered near the door, sharing their reactions and excitement.

Then Henry spotted something.

Just to the left of the double doors, and elegantly placed on an ornate shelf, was a golden telephone, glinting in the light of newly lit candles. He and Charlotte moved closer, to read the panel mounted on the wall beside it. The wording was concise, yet intriguing.

The month of cakes

It may be the shortest month of the year, but February seems replete with symbolism, ritual and ambiguity. Ancient observances jumble with Christian overlays. Calendrical quirks and lunar considerations bubble up and surface. The weather flatters, but can also deceive. The garden wakes up, though might easily turn over and go back to sleep. Much bemoaned as a time of dreich and drear, I have found this February, with its extra day, to be a most intriguing month.

Denise Zygadlo: making art through lines, threads, prints and performance

I think I first spoke to Denise Zygadlo at a death cafe. An occasion where strangers meet together over coffee and cake, to talk about mortality in all its aspects. I was impressed by her clarity of thought and speech and her open-ness about her encounters with dying and death in her family.

I already knew something about her work as an artist. I also observed over time how she would be present at the opening of exhibitions, at film screenings and talks: just some of the many places where creative people gather together to celebrate, to look, listen, and to share ideas.

I confess to being slightly puzzled by her work. Simply put, it isn’t easy to pigeon hole. It draws on many materials, on human bodies, on physical movement, fabrics and photocopies, print and pencil. Created in a Nithsdale glen, it seems to be anything but pastoral. It provokes, up-skittles and questions. Taken as a whole it’s a vast bricolage of inspiration, made and remade, and literally re-fashioned over time. Assiduously and with discipline.

So it was terrific for me to get such a positive response from Denise when I invited her to take part in my series of interviews with people who do interesting things as they live and work in Dumfries and Galloway. One who self confessedly likes structure and focus, she completed the email interview process far quicker than anyone else has done so far.

From her answers to my questions I learned so much about her practice, which has been developing, shifting and changing over more than five decades. I hope you’ll enjoy reading her story and taking advantage of the links which lead to various aspects of her art over time. My thanks go to Denise for sharing all this – and for creating a remarkable body of work, which just seems to keep on giving.

Wintering through January

With the Christmas decorations packed away and the New Year holiday behind us, I found myself pondering on those moments in the depths of Winter when the darkness persists and the weather forecast hangs over our plans and commitments. Too early yet to think of Spring, despite the slender daffodils in the shops, but maybe a time to think differently about the affordances of mid-Winter.

Wintering. It’s a word I’d mainly considered in relation to animals and birds. Those that hibernate or migrate. It’s a grammatical curiosity. Winter is a noun (‘in winter’), or tenuously, an adjective (‘a winter soup’) and yes, just possibly a verb (‘they winter here’). But wintering? In fact it’s the present participle of the verb, but now used as an adjective. It seems to be coming more prominent in the lexicon. Not only applied to animals and birds, but more and more to us humans too.

In this sense, wintering seems to take on an active meaning, albeit not in the conventional sense of ‘active’. It’s about slowing down, reflecting more, thinking deeper. It manifests itself in such things as the preparation of certain foods, especially the kind that take a long time to cook on a low heat. It’s associated with reading, with walks, encountering the natural world, or simply doing nothing very much, but in a purposeful way. So having read a little about the practice of wintering, I decided to apply myself to it in the first weeks of 2024. I’ve tried to capture some of the experience here (in the present tense!).

Where the music takes me – an interview with Stuart Macpherson

Among the many pleasures of life in Dumfries and Galloway is its thriving music scene, the product of a rich and varied community of singers, players and composers. It’s a place that fosters collaboration and, with that, experimentation across styles and musical genres. In recent times it has also produced creative partnerships with poets and writers, film makers, photographers and sound artists.

Very cool stuff, in other words.

Which is why I contacted one of the active people in this space, Stuart Macpherson, and asked him to take part in my series of interviews with inspiring and creative people living and working in rural south west Scotland.

Stuart came to the region as a child and has pursued a diverse musical career from his base in Nithsdale.

Here in his interview, he talks about a musical and collaborative journey of fascinating twists and turns, with much achieved to date – and an exciting future ahead!

My thanks go to Stuart for taking time for the interview. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Catkins at New Year

Towards the end of last winter, this hazel bush was pruned hard and the older stems carefully removed. The treatment appears to have been beneficial, and the show of catkins now is like none it has produced before. The benefits of the right intervention at the right time!

On the afternoon of Hogmanay, the sun appeared briefly and a gentle breeze blew through the garden. Perfect conditions to spread the catkin pollen through the monoecious shrub.

I spent some time watching the catkins shimmer brightly in a beautifully choreographed aeolian dance. Delicate, soft green tails, each said to comprise over two hundred flowers.

So there’s every prospect of a good crop of cobnuts from Avellana Corylus come the autumn. If, of course, our resident red squirrels don’t get there first!

Meanwhile, the catkins shine out, as they light our way with hope into a New Year in the Dumfriesshire garden – and in the world beyond it.

Epiphanies and Robberies Chapter 12: The Advent of New Ways of Being

Whilst Andrew nurses a bad cold, Anne-Marie and Caitlin are Christmas shopping, and Michael is discovering a new-found enthusiasm for things culinary. Meanwhile the art robbers are awaiting sentence following their guilty plea and DC Harris makes arrangements for the safe return of the stolen goods. On the night of the Winter Solstice, The Maxwell Band gives an outstanding first full performance of Calendarium, and the record company team make a surprise trip to hear it. The morning after, Andrew is invited to a breakfast meeting in which he is given an unprecedented opportunity to do something major for Nithsdale. Christmas day brings contentment for Senga’s mother, for Michael and his family, and for Caitlin and Anne-Marie. In the afternoon, the three amateur sleuths gather for Christmas lunch, at the end of which Andrew makes his two new friends an offer of remarkable generosity.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: In this story I mix up and blur chronologies, geographies and biographies. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely coincidental. The 12 chapters of the novel Epiphanies and Robberies appeared sequentially throughout 2023. They have now been re-drafted and are in search of a publisher.

The novel also has a playlist to enjoy, you can find it here: http://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XSzB1w8hfrRPUBzs4KFNF?si=JkkDbGmRQM2WeHjcOrFO

The unreliable narrator: a Christmas mystery story

In writing not one, but two previous Christmas mysteries, I have come to be regarded as something of an ‘unreliable narrator’. One who misleads and beguiles the reader in order to gain advantage. Apparently, it’s a trope much loved by writers, but I have to say it’s not one I care for.

After all, I’m a social scientist. I gather evidence, analyse it carefully, and present the results in a balanced way. I try to be rigorous, to proceed in an ethical fashion, and to declare my biases. I strive, you might say, to be a reliable narrator.

But can truth be taken at face value? Sometimes it must be elaborated, or stretched. That’s certainly what seems to be going on in this, my third, Christmas mystery story.

So, please make what you will of what I have written here, and perhaps form your own judgement about the narrator. Reliable or not? It’s you who must decide.