Jane's Writing Shed.

The flibbertigibbet of a house ‘I’ll be safe when I’m enclosed’ Sir Walter Scott’* (Sir Walter Scott’s motto carved into the gateway at Abbotsford.) Within the bounds of his rambling residence he assembled books in thousands, countless treasures, his talismans, many intimate, some fake: Byron’s urn full of Greek bones, a lead musket ball from Culloden, Rob Roy’s skean-dhu, a black and gilt harp by Sebastian Erard, a skull cast from Robert the Bruce, two Tollbooth keys, a blunderbuss and Raeburn’s portrait with dogs, Camp and Percy. Against invasion he bought up land, transformed his house and furiously wrote while drawing all about him. And though it’s all still there he barely lived two decades at his beloved Abbotsford. The Writing Cabinet ‘Afflavit Deus et dissipantur’ ‘God blew and they were scattered’ (Inscribed on a silver plate on Sir Walter Scott’s writing cabinet) This is how it might have been. Sixty-three galleons ...

I was reading one of the Guardian's long essays recently written by Patrick Barkham. This was a riveting piece about the effect of grouse shooting on raptors particularly the fate of goshawks in Bowland. Then I bought David Harsent's collection Fire Songs published by Faber & Faber which has recently won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Re-reading one of the poems in this collection 'Bowland Beth' I suddenly realised that the subject was one of the same goshawks mentioned in Patrick Barkham's article. Where the Guardian essay was a wonderful example of contemporary nature writing, well researched and shocking, David Harsent's poem concentrates on the beauty of the goshawk to create an elegy for a bird almost driven to extinction. 'That she made shapes in the air  That she saw the world as pattern and light  moorland to bare mountain drawn by        instinct' Then 'That the gunshot was another sound amid      birdcall  a...

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...

I'm often drawn to write about space related themes, so when I read that the closest neighbours to the Antarctic research base are the astronauts on board the ISS, that was enough to get me started. This poem was inspired by text and images by Dr Alexander Kumar published in the Guardian 2 July 2014. Minus eighty degrees If humans migrate into the sea of stars, this is how it might be one day. The Eastern Antarctic Plateau is white as Mars, the world's highest, driest desert. Wintering in the research base, Concordia, there's no way back for nine months, nothing for a thousand kilometers, nothing closer than the International Space Station. As much in common with space than earth, at night no-one locks doors and the only visitors consist of hallucinogenic day-glow flashes from the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights. Above all cold. Cold that steals your breath. Unendurable, almost.