The play's the thing!
Am typing this with autumn colours outside and a cup of coffee beside me. I am definitely back from Africa! But there's something about being away that makes me look at my home surroundings differently when I get back. Not that I've had much time to sit around. Working full-time means cramming everything else into the day, so I am constantly writing lists and trying to stick to them.
Last week I was crossing borders. On Monday David and I took Jamie back to Aberdeen University, which was good because we got a chance to see my family in Montrose. Then on Saturday, I was the driver (with Bob Cooper and Anna Woodford as passengers and navigators) while we travelled to the Wigtown Literary Festival. We were reading on the Sunday in the Gael Force tent, which changed to the gale force tent as I started to read. Thankfully the microphone meant the rather small audience (there were another two events on at the same time) could still hear us. We were appearing with poets Jennifer Copley and Sue Vickerman as The Shameless Heaneys. Sue had done all the organising (thank you!) and we had a great weekend.
September has been a good month for my short stories. One of them appeared in Newcastle Stories 1 which is published by Comma Press and was given away with this month's issue of The Crack magazine. The same story was also reprinted in another short story booklet which was given away with Prospect magazine. It was great seeing it on sale in WH Smith! I'm reading the story at the Festival of Stories at Live Theatre on October 11th.
I have just heard that my one act play "The Anstruther Light" is through to the final three in the Scottish Community Drama Association's play competition. I'll travel up to Livingston in November to see it being performed - the winner will be announced that night.
Last night I was at the book launch of friends Jeanne Macdonald and Heather Young, who are the latest Diamond Twiglets. It was in the studio at the Gala Theatre in Durham which is such a great venue. The evening was wonderful with great readings and the first of several book launches as part of the Durham Litfest. All three of us will be taking part in the National Poetry event at the Lit and Phil which Julia Darling is organising. Lots of poets and lots of poems about food so should be good!
Rosacea and Running
I have been keeping a sporadic running and writing diary since 1998, when I ran the Great North Run (first and last time). Recently I have given running a break, partly because I had a bad knee and I had to rest it, and partly because I have recently been diagnosed with Rosacea.
This is the disease, I discover, that gave WC Fields his bulbous nose.
It's a skin complaint that largely affects women between 30 and 55, with the type of fair skin that flushes easily: with heat or exercise. I was looking like I'd been heat blistered with a paint stripper, and children in classrooms would exclaim:
"Ee Miss ! what¹s happened to yer face ?"
I thought I had bad eczema. My forehead, cheeks and chin were red, and covered with raised lumps and pimples that were itchy, sore and dry. I was being treated homeopathically, so I left it to work, but by the end of August I decided to go to my doctor, who said "What took you so long ?".
Rosacea is treatable by antibiotic cream, rubbed in twice a day for months and although it can be kept under control it never goes entirely.
I think it has been triggered by my constant hot flushes such as women of a certain age experience, but my doctor said I had to avoid the typical triggers:
hot sun, alcohol, coffee, spicy food, heavy exercise, stress.
So, that's my lifestyle bang out the window. I've started a Bridget Jones type diary, of alcohol and coffee consumption, with comments on how I slept, when I woke to pee, and how many hot flushes I've had. Although I'm having some alcohol free days, I find I make up for it on the others - not quite the point. And I have to admit, when I don't drink, I generally sleep better, dammit.
My doctor said, on a return visit, when I admitted I was struggling a little:
"Give up the easy things like alcohol, but don't stop running". Ha.
So the writing is on the wall. I am determined to reduce the alcohol and pick up the running again.
The good thing about running is that it keeps me fit, makes me feel good and really helps with my writing. Ideas just come when I run round the town moor, they float into my consciousness, surprising me in a wonderful way. They do that when I'm cleaning the toilet as well, but it's much more pleasurable when I'm running, and as I keep a running diary, it becomes a focus for remembering and writing. So the desire to write keeps me going out to run and vice versa.
I've had two poems to write for this October, one for the Lit and Phil National Poetry Day Feast on the theme of food, and one for the Public Libraries Authorities' conference dinner. Food seems inextricably combined with poetry this autumn, I just hope they go down well.
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