# 62

I am up at 5.30 to get ready to get ready to take a Skype call from Australia and participate in a research interview on 'prose poetry'. Yesterday I was in a PhD viva in London, as the external examiner and all week I have been supervising PhD work, MA work, filling in funding applications, corresponding with prospective PhD students, dealing with emails on the new books I am involved in - four of them (one of them written, thankfully) as well as participating in the said prose poetry project and writing another version of The Ghost on Brooklyn Bridge, but of course to the eyes of the world, we academics get great holidays since we stopped teaching last week. I love it, the busy business of it all, what else would we do? And even since getting up at 5.30 there is much to be done - there is only so much lazing around anyone could 'thole' - that being the Scots use of that word, by the way, which my mother used often, 'Ah canna thole it...' it means 'bear it', 'put up with'. I took this picture (above on campus). Its the Garden of Reconciliation and Peace and its probably the best place on the entire campus to sit - hmm, perhaps being taken over by the new chapel which is sublime. But as we slip into that season, even the words reconciliation and peace should be in our heads - if yeh can thole it. I posted this track before but its my album of the year for dark mornings like this:

# 61

The number of this post is appropriate. Yesterday was my birthday. Every year for the best part of nearly sixty my mother would sing happy birthday to me as we turned on the Christmas tree lights. A ceremony which I never really thought was for me alone because we are a big family, but it was nice to be singled out. Of course I realise that isn't going to happen now, but there is still something hugely magical about putting the tree up on the thirteenth, twelve days before Christmas and we still do it. This is our tree - a little blurry (like me). Diane, Daniel and I sorted it out and Abbi viewed it on Skype (she will be back soon). My mum's name was Margaret and she died a couple of years back, not getting the phone call and her singing happy birthday still feels a little raw. I have her singing it on my speaker phone, still, because one year I was in Los Angeles (working on a film) but I haven't listened to it - though when I am scanning the messages sometimes I catch it. (I can't bear to scrub it - that and the one of my mum and dad having a conversation where he is saying, 'Och its the speaker thing, what dae a dae?' and she replies, 'Gie it tae me... hello Andrew, its mum here...' I have ceased to be sixty, the novelty has gone and I am firmly planted in this decade. Oh well, everyone said the sixties was the place to be and the big plans I had for the year, especially for The Boat, are already slipping into place. The world moves on, we move on, but I still like to put the tree up on the thirteenth. I love the sentiment of this song but let's be honest, its a great song - Happy Christmas, war is over... I wish.

# 60

Yesterday's pictures I posted were popular but I realise in my editing haste (turning them the right way up) I turned the reflection one's upside down, so I am posting some more. I haven't tampered with the colour in anyway and I would like to see them lit up too (but my dad was getting too tired to stay - and that was okay)

# 59

Yesterday my dad and I took a walk down by the kelpies again, now that the whole area had been landscaped and these are what we saw. The light was oddly grey but bright and the water was brighter than the sky - little did we know we were about to see snow. I find the whole place fascinating, especially since there was hardly anyone there but us. I post these pictures here, just for the joy. The installation is a celebration of the working life of horses, in the working lives of us and its a true celebration.