Unsuitable blog and HappenStance news

Outside the window of my study where I'm writing this, the berries on the rowans are glowing orangy-red, even in the rain. Yesterday, I picked (and ate) a handful of blackberries (brambles in Scotland). Autumn is here.

When I was somewhere around twenty, I remember having a discussion with an artist friend, someone much older than me - he was in his early sixties then. We were talking about seasons and I spoke about Autumn, my favourite season, how I loved the colours and the feeling in the air. He said that when I was older I would come to prefer the Spring.

This was the last week before college bites -- back to that other grindstone. So I locked the front door, ignored the phone and worked flat out. As usual I didn't get as far as I thought I would. However, Rose Cook's everyday festival has gone to Robert and Liz at Dolphin Press, and so has Alison Brackenbury's Shadow ( a collection of animal poems).

One wedding over. It was a lovely day and the HappenStance prototype PoemCard made its first appearance. Since then it's been slimmed down, tweaked, its leading changed, its titling endlessly rearranged, its backside information fiddled with. But some gorgeous envelopes are on order. The end product is very very close.

Gillian gets married on Monday. Gillian is the person who does almost all the graphics for HappenStance and she's my daughter. This week she's been not only running in and out of Edinburgh, with her boyfriend, making wedding arrangements, getting cake tins (she's doing her own wedding cake) and so on, but also sending me images for the pamphlets in hand.

Excellent news! Janet Loverseed's poem 'Portrait of Henrietta Moraes on a Blue Couch, 1965' has won the Grey Hen competition. The Judges' comments are very interesting too -- worth a look.

After a nearly glorious day yesterday when I walked along the beach with my son, who is visiting, today it's back to rain. A bit of a blow to find that a fourth leak seems to have developed in the conservatory roof. Oh dear. Something expensive is going to have to happen soon. I work in there!