Hares and Films

I visited Annette Tait's wonderful little exhibition in Portobello Library today! Anyone familiar with Annette's blog will know that she creates beautiful soft sculptures of mother hares and baby hares - mostly from fabrics bought from Portobello's Cat and Dog Home charity shop. Annette also writes wonderfully engaging stories for each hare. The exhibition includes a lovely selection of hares with their individual stories and it's well worth spending time on reading all the stories! My favourite story is that of Fetlar, a lovely baby hare from the Scottish island of the same name whose purpose in life is to look after the nests of the red-necked phalarope, which is a small wader found only around certain remote Scottish islands. You can buy Annette's hares and other crafts from her Etsy shop. Annette's exhibition is on at Portobello Library until 27 May!

After visiting the exhibition I had tea and cake with Annette on the balcony of a cafe with views over Portobello beach and swallows and house martins rushing around the sky around us. I also got to meet Annette's adorable rabbits Arabella and Wesley!

Also today was the launch of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. I've said a wee bit more about this year's programme over on Over Forty Shades, but it's worth saying here that this year there seem to be a fair number of films with environmental connections (look out for plenty of reviews here!). There will also be a bike powered mobile cinema, showing films throughout the festival. It promises to be the most exciting Film Festival for several years!

Finally, I'm delighted to have three poems in the current issue of Sketchbook, which you can read here.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more!