Bye till January!

This last while I've been about a bit -

Down in the Borders doing primary and secondary school events with Live Literature Scotland and Borders Book Festival.

On the 26 Children's Winters Advent Calendar - Goodnight.

Posting on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure with a poem by Maya Angelou - A Brave and Startling Truth

And now I want to send you all good wishes for a Happy Christmas and a New Year full of books!

(And a few cat pictures.  My furry boys have grown from small handfuls of delectableness into armfuls of delight - 

So big!  So beautiful!  And Christmas trees LIKE being re-decorated innumerable times, right?)  

I'm signing off now until the first week in January - see you then.

Christmas Music - New to Me

I sing with the Dundee Choral Union, which is a pleasure and a challenge, and Sunday evening is our Christmas concert.  The second half of the programme is the Bach Magnificat - gorgeous, but blimey, those runs!  And in the first half we're singing two pieces that were completely new to me AND I LOVE THEM!  In case you hadn't come across them either, have a listen to Saint-Saen's Oratorio de Noel - 

and Charpentier's Messe Minuit pour Noel -

Just delectable, I hope you'll agree.


(If by any chance you're near Dundee on 13 Dec. at 7:30 p.m., the concert is at the Caird Hall, with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera under the direction of Derek Clark.  It's going to be fun!)

Poetry Map of Scotland

There's a shiny new version of the Poetry Map of Scotland online this week as StAnza Poetry Festival unveils the programme for March 2016.

I'm taking part on the 5th, at the launch of the Emma Press Anthology of Age.  I know March seems like a long way ahead but I suspect it will be upon us with supernatural alacrity.  

Oh, and re. the map, I've always thought 62 was a nice number ...