Still Life with Rabbit and Lobelia

She lay on the lounger, watching
the rabbit nuzzle the lobelia.

Delia, for that was the rabbit's
improbable name, loved chewing

plants but found this one
a puzzle, more pretty than tasty

and somehow sad with its air
of suburban ennui but she,

Delia, did not do boredom
and continued to sniff

until the purpleness of lobelia
flooded her heart

and she leapt up in a binky*
while her owner began to sink

into a warren of dreams
about bunnies and stars.


(This was originally written in respose to a prompt in Poetry Nottingham, to use the first two lines in a poem, the winning entry can be read here (scroll down), I'm reposting the poem now in response to this photo over on A Houseful of Rabbits)

*binky is the rabbit dance of joy

In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore

We live in a society that seems to be constantly accelerating, people rush through life. Recently however the Slow Movement has gained momentum (if that doesn't seem a contradiction in terms!). Based largely in Italy, the Slow Movement advocates for a slower approach to all aspects of life, from food to human relationships.

In this book, Carl Honore, a self confessed speed addict, explores the nature of this movement. Chapter by chapter he looks at a different element of the movement and also considers the nature of Slowness in general. He outlines ways in which we can all slow down and emphasizes that the idea is not to go back to pre-industrial times but to find a balance, such that we know when to take things slowly (as in savouring our food, making time for our families etc) and when speed is useful (as I'm sure Honore found as he flew round the world to research this book).

I live my own life at a relatively slow pace, I work part time and enjoy walking in the countrside, reading and crafting, all typically slow pastimes. As an environmentalist, I find that adopting a slow approach to life, makes me more appreciative of nature, more aware of the impact my lifestyle has on the environment and more able to reduce the impact I have on the environment.

I found this book interesting in tracing the development of the Slow Movement, but I did find that the chapters were all quite similar in their format and this became a bit dull towards the end. However overall I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to slow down their life at all.

In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore, published by Orion

As ever the text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to websites where you can find out more.

I also posted a slightly different review of this book for the Italy in Books Reading Challenge on my Over 40 Shades blog, you can read it here.

Valentines Day giftwrap

I made this shiny Valentine's giftwrap from 100% reused packaging materials, it's actually too bright to have photographed well. Inside there is a box of fair trade chocolate hearts.

Geology of Water of Leith

As some of you know I'm currently doing an evening class on the Geology of Scottish Hills. The tutor for this course also runs Geowalks, a company that offers geological walks around Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland. This morning Crafty Green Boyfriend and I joined a Geowalk along part of the Water of Leith and up the nearby Easter Craiglockart Hill. It was a very interesting walk, and the weather was perfect, a bit cloudy to start with, but becoming clear and almost warm later. We learned a fair bit about the sandstone rocks that underlie the Water of Leith and the igneous rocks in Easter Craiglockart Hill, which was a volcano millions of years ago during the Carboniferous period when what is now Scotland lay on the equator and was a very active volcanic area.

I recently posted this photo of some rocks in the Water of Leith and mansuetude asked whether they were slate. Well the answer is no, they're a kind of sandstone. It is interesting though that Slateford, which is a former mining village, now part of Edinburgh, along the Water of Leith, is so called because of the 'slate-like' stones by the river.

There will be another Geowalk along a different part of the Water of Leith in June, so I'll write a bit about that too!

As ever, red text in this post includes hyperlinks which will take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Ducks

Here are some of the ducks at Gorgie City Farm, photographed last weekend.

For Weekend Reflections

On Fire

In our primal memories -
the red shimmer of the first fire,
our pride in making it.

We sheltered it and worshipped it,
built our homes around the hearth,
carried it with us to new lands.

But awe became obsession
as we sought out hotter fire
and better tools for making it.

Now endless burning forests
fill the air with clouds of smoke
and the cries of dying animals

hang in the orange skies.

Song of the Rolling Earth by John Lister Kaye

This is a wonderful book! It focuses mostly on the author's personal journey towards setting up the Aigas Field Study Centre in the Scottish Highlands and the work that he and his employees have since done at that field study centre.

Lister-Kaye had always been interested in nature but was driven to do more when the Torrey Canyon oil tanker crashed in the Isles of Scilly in 1967. This disaster forced him to rethink what he was doing and he left his job in industry and started out along the road that lead him to the Highlands.

The book is full of wonderful stories of the people and wildlife of the Highlands. It also outlines the environmental history of the area, the disappearance of much of the original forest and the overstocking of land with deer and other game animals. We read about wonderful lochs that have been damaged as wildlife habitats by mismanagement of forestry plantations. This is the point in the book where the reader is forced to consider the complexities of trees in the Highland landscape, I felt this was something that could have been explored with just a little bit more detail in the book.

Not that the book lacks detail! We read in beautifully written and well observed detail about the swifts nesting in the tower, the local crofters (small scale farmers) who work within the natural constraints of the area, the return of ospreys to the area, the volunteers who work at the centre, the realities of Highland winters, an amazing encounter with an otter....

This is a fascinating book for anyone interested in nature, the history of the Scottish Highlands or the complexities of setting up a field studies centre!

Song of the Rolling Earth by John Lister-Kaye, published by Time Warner


I just posted a review on Over Forty Shades that could equally well have been posted here. It's a review of Mark Doty's poetry collection My Alexandria and you can read it here.