@emsplem
I like some stuff (art, poetry, history, philosophy, dogs, rhinos) I dislike some stuff (fascists and their enablers, mosquitoes, slugs) I do some things (gardening, walking, cycling, nursing) I don’t do others (drive, eat meat, walk my reactive dog much)
Chinooks flying low and loud last Spring triggered the fear and now any helicopter has him running for cover, like some latter-day Vietnam vet. I was never aware that there were so many of them. I want to put up a ‘Go Away’ sign atop the house.
A frantic scratching/pawing at the back door, which usually means there’s something outside to be chased off, but this time it was MadDog terrified, wanting to get back in. Helicopter overhead! He’s now spent over an hour being anxious and listening out fearfully.
Wife to Noah Eunice Buchanan I didna speak whan it bleetert doon. Ma man wis gey taen up wi’ getting us sortit, an’ it wis fell lang afore we had the bastes in an’ the fowl settled. I didna speak whan the watters spewed ower ma rigs o’ corn an’ doon the street intae ma hoose amangst ma rugs an’ the bonny things I had fae ma mither. I didna speak whan I heard ma frien Becca battrin at the howe o’ wir boat, her bairn in her airms, yowlin like een o’ the damned o’Hell. We had linkit doon the years fae bairnie tae wife. Ma bonny hinnie, weel-hertit Becca. I clappit ma haunds tae ma lugs an’ flung ma airms aboot ma laddies, but still I didna speak I didna speak whan the lift grew black an’ blacker an’ there wis naither muin nor sun an’ the cries that had been aa aboot us wir smoored. Nae soond on that black sea but the doonfa, the dreep, the plowt, the pish-oot o’ grey watter on grey watter. I canna speak o’ the things on the watter as the days drave on – swollen an’ blae, wi the sea-maws skirlin an’ pickin, skirlin an’ pickin. Syne whan the well-heid dried an’ the watters sank, the laund, oor bonny laund, slaich an’ slairy wi’ black glaur, an’ oorsels alane. But whan I gang the low road on the hinmaist day an’ I climb the steps for my tryst wi’ God I will look the Almichty in the face – an’ I will hae ma say.
I didna speak
whan it bleetert doon.
Ma man wis gey taen up wi’ getting us
sortit, an’ it wis fell lang afore we had
the bastes in an’ the fowl settled…
—Eunice Buchanan, “Wife to Noah”
from MARKINGS 30 (2010)
#InternationalWomensDay #poem #poetry
www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/wife-no...
Cover of Gisele Pelicot's book A Hymn to Life
On #IWD2026, it feels fitting to sing the praises of this extraordinary book, read beautifully by Emma Thompson.
If you’ve yet to read it, please do. Gisèle Pelicot’s strength, courage & basic human decency ring out from its pages - as does the grotesque misogyny of her courtroom experience...
Haggis pakora is now seen as commonplace, isn’t it?
Kathleen Jamie Lochan (For Jean Johnstone) When all this is over I mean to travel north, by the high drove roads and cart tracks probably in June, with the gentle dog-roses flourishing beside me. I mean to find among the thousands scattered in that land a certain quiet lochan, where water lilies rise like small fat moons, and tied among the reeds, underneath a rowan, a white boat waits.
When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high
drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,
with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me…
—Kathleen Jamie, “Lochan”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Picador, 2018)
#BookologyThursday #poem #poetry 💙📚
www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kath...
FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?
And now the full 1939 clip. It's startling seeing the contrast. My grandfather was posted not far from here at one point, so maybe he strolled through when it looked like this. Weird to think about.
#Film #History #Edinburgh
Here is the full 1938 clip. What a gorgeous space it was.
#Film #History #Edinburgh
Today we're visiting the Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh with the Scott Monument in the background. Two shots taken one year apart, but that year makes a huge difference! Left side is 1938, right is 1939, and the park has been dug up for bomb shelters!
From 16mm film
#Film #History #Edinburgh
1100 was the wall. How far back in time can you read English?
Nursing badge with St Andrew’s cross. The words ‘Registered Mental Nurse Scotland’ around the outside.
Nursing badge with red and white maltese cross and the words ‘Royal Medico Psych Association Certified Nurse’ around the edge.
Today is Mental Health Nurses’ Day. So here are just a couple of my gran’s nursing badges. She became a mental health nurse back in the 1930s when things were very different!
@rcnhistory.bsky.social
#HistNursing
#MHNursesDay
Something I loved today.
The Met Office explaining winds by portraying them as a blancmange version of The Blob.
I know someone who worked there for years. Apparently it’s consistently been one of the most asked about topics from visitors. #BringBackOurFish
This is a rubbish, click-bait headline, which is a shame because the article itself is a really interesting interview with Emin.
The word of the day is "Apricity" - the warmth of the sun on a cold winter’s day ☀️
Enjoy the sunshine forecast today 😎
Those TV programmes where they show people from China etc being stopped from bringing food stuffs into Australia: how many Scots are whistling happily as they stroll past with their plain loaf and Lorne sausage and haggis and black pudding in their carry-on?
Feeling oddly smug in the 100% belief that I totally could do this job.
A photo of two terracotta plant pots on a wall both with green fronds of crocuses but lots and lots of small mushrooms sprouting out and no flowers.
When you plant crocuses and life gives you mushrooms.
@mirandakeeling.com
On a recent visit to my parents house
81yo Mum: What's this A1 thing they keep going on about?
87yo Dad: It's not A1, it's AI.
Mum: Where did you learn that?
Dad: We used to have it when I worked on a farm. The vet used to administer it
Dodgy, dodgy foreign donations to Reform laundered through dummy British-owned companies.
Non-paywall full article:
archive.ph/DPzO1
They did a sterling job at the end of a night shift, moving huge amounts of patients and thereafter dealing with them in corridors etc.
But apparently I don’t get any thanks for jokes about what the bed manager would say tomorrow.
Let's hope this positive news gets as much attention as the people who try to convince us that the UK is a murder ravaged hellscape.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
It really is an awful human urge to publicise the thing that annoys you, and these arseholes know it.
Hah! I always forget that she gets called Queen now. Thank you.
Apparently, Val McDermid is convening with the dead:
"The writer, who is also a national year of reading ambassador, met the Queen on Monday during the launch of a reading initiative at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh."
2024: can Europe defend itself ALONGSIDE America?
2025: can Europe defend itself WITHOUT America?
2026: can Europe defend itself AGAINST America?
"And we now have María on the line who would like to swap a Nobel Peace Prize for the presidency of Venezuela..."
Rescued a week apart. Orphaned for the same tragic reason – their mothers fell off cliffs.
Tytan the rhino and Notty the zebra have been healing together ever since. An unlikely pair who completed each other's family.
sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/o...
