Jane's Writing Shed.

Here's a whimsical story for the year's end. It explains why methane gas has been found on Mars recently and the origins of a popular nursery rhyme.... Sparkle Derek was okay for a robot.  Shortly after I flopped out of a tube in the big pod on Mars,  he gave me a tag name, Sparkle.   He didn't know that my mother had already named me Farming  Today  after her favourite radio programme.  She'd lived somewhere called Earth and used to tell me about  things  called meadows.   I don’t know what happened to her after that. Derek and I used to have late night conversations.  He said I was a good listener. One night after he had shambled back to his sleeping pod,  I had a dream which mixed up all my mother’s stories  and Derek’s  odd tales.  The next morning I came to a decision  as the milking robots  sucked at our udders.  When Derek appeared to re-fill  the food hoppers,...

Meeting wild There was an instantaneous moment of recognition when the sparrow, disturbed from pecking insectivores, panicked and flew through the gap in the hedge, over the gate and straight into the crook of my arm and back out again. And as I felt the impact of nothing, weightless feather and bone, reversing on a handbrake turn, I saw what the bird saw, something to be feared, in the memory of every bird, since humans first set traps,  sharpened tools,  lit fires. Rescue from the Blue Crevasse She wondered how ice could smell like this, as she hung inside the glacier, harnessed to the end of a rope, trussed up like a spider's prey, waiting in silence for the yank on the line, curious that everything beyond the chance opening above her head felt so remote. Then through the frozen layers, muffled voices came to her and suddenly the winch jerked her upwards inch by inch. She wondered later why she'd volunteered to be lowered down, for at any mom...

I was one of 13 poets reading at the Scott's Treasures - Contemporary Poetry Showcase held at Sir Walter Scott's home at Abbotsford House on November 18. This was a very enjoyable evening event organised by Scottish Borders Council, Creative Arts Business Network and celebrated a number of objects from the collection that Scott gathered during his lifetime. Poems written specially for this event will be published in the Winter edition of The Eildon Tree freely available through libraries and other outlets in the Scottish Borders. I also went along to The Scottish Poetry Pamphlet Fair held at The National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh on Dec 10. This is always such a good pre-Christmas event and this time I left with a great haul of poetry pamphlets...  Late Quartets by David Betteridge - published by Rhizome Press Treasure in the History of Things by Katherine McMahon - published by Stewed Rhubarb plus free gift of farmform concrete poetry card...