RSE Christmas Lecture

Today I'm at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, taking part in the 2016 RSE Christmas Lecture.  I'm on a panel with Helen Sharman (the first British astronaut), Duncan Forgan (Research Fellow in, among other space things, life on other planets) and chaired by John Brown (Astronomer Royal for Scotland) - yeah, I know, pretty high-powered company!  Should be amazing, and if you're in town, come and say hello!  (I'll be the sci-fi writer trying to pass as a scientist ...)

Lovely Light, Unlovely Lurgie

After a week of Grade A Lurgitude, I am on the mend, and happy to share some photos of other Novembers.  (Did see the Supermoon, though, very briefly, just above the horizon and just before a bank of clouds ate it.  It was fabulous!)

Turning to Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - 

That perches in the soul - 

And sings the tune without the words - 

And never stops - at all - 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - 

And sore must be the storm - 

That could abash the little Bird 

That kept so many warm - 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - 

And on the strangest Sea - 

Yet - never - in Extremity, 

It asked a crumb - of me.

Emily Dickinson 

(written in 1861, published posthumously in 1891)

Slightly Jones and Alloway Primary School

A big thank you to the P6s of Alloway Primary School for inviting me to visit - it was great!  I took a few photos of the fabulous Slightly Jones displays you'd done and here they are -

Lighthouses and Puddles

My Paper Zone Weekend was GREAT!  Next time I do it, though, I'm going to leave my phone behind as well, or figure out how to disable the email-receiving bit of it.  But I was glad I did bring my camera, partly because lighthouses feature in the new novel ...

... and partly because when I took a break from writing I was able to play with photographing puddle pictures (not sure how they're likely to figure in the novel, but I had fun any way) -

I'm also over on The History Girls today, expressing a certain ambivalence for the 5th of November.