Imagination can be a frightening thing. A few treasured moments between friends during a few evenings of fear. Nights spent listening to the Railway Dentist, ears like satellites, warm shoulders of comfort, midnight feasts, 999 calls - an arm of safety, borrowed pajamas, soft-boiled eggs, a P&P box set, a reasoning, a logic. Preparation is key to survive the coming months. The Shetland fantasy treats me well, allows a concentration, a nerve, a desire.
A bitter weekend took me home to Lincolnshire. Winter creeps through the cracks in the door, long cross country train journeys are welcomed with warming roast dinners and sweet baby breath. Time ticks on as decisions are made, smiles reappear as tears dry up, tolerance develops and hearts evolve, leaves turn while weekends become memories that refuse to linger. Learning to love is priority, trying to forgive is essential. November afternoon sun becomes a medicine.
To experience the coldest of climates is a desire I've always had, and come February 2009 I will be holding my breath as tightly as my countless hot water bottles. A month at the booth in shetland will see me right for a concentrated effort of reading, writing, looking, drawing, being. Counting the days until I set sail for a voyage of discovery, accompanied only by thermals, red wine and paper.
Every day is filled with workshop thoughts of late, evening schools, weekend master classes, early morning preparations and midnight ideas. The next 3 months are filled to the brim with sharing the love of books with anyone who talks to me for long enough...waxing lyrically on form & content, sequence & narrative, grain direction & Somerset papers, teflon bone folders & gun-metal book cloths, linen thread thicknesses & guillotine pressure, creasing machine maths & foil-blocking temperatures...
An exclusive invitation from the first Aberfeldy Book festival took me on a monumental train journey north to the warm, tea drinking Temple gallery for a weekend of windows and workshops. A sea of paper boats were cut, folded and hung by the comfort of the roaring fire, while locals tentatively peered in to see what all the laughing and smiling was about. By Saturday morning word in the town was out that sail boats bobbed in mid-air on Dunkeld Street. A well attended mini book making workshop followed and was received with enthusiasm. By sunset I was racing through the exquisite landscape to seek my own life boat in Edinburgh for a dose of unique hugs and a rice pudding supper.
