Icelandic sagas, new bike (maybe) and dramatic sky

While out cycling last week, I listened to an In Our Time podcast about Icelandic Sagas and it proved to be a very interesting and educational programme. The panel discussed the various types of sagas, including family sagas and adventure sagas. the sagas  cover events in Iceland in the 10th and 11th centuries and were written in the 13th and 14th centuries. It’s probable – but there’s no definitive proof, that the written sagas were based on stories handed down in the oral tradition. If you want to read some of the sagas, then the Icelandic Saga Database is an excellent source. An added interest for me is that my former colleague at Charles Sturt University John Kennedy is an expert on the sagas. His book on translating the sagas is recognised as an authoritative work.

My existing bike – a 10 year old Giant OCR and while it is still a comfortable ride, it needs a new back wheel at some point. As I was walking to Belhaven Bikes my local bikeshop in Dunbar to collect my bike after another repair, I started thinking “New wheel? Mmm – how about new bike?”. I now have some catalogues for new bikes and I am particularly interested in the Forme Longcliffe 1.0 which has been very well reviewed. Now, given that I am a pretty average cyclist, it probably doesn’t matter whether I choose this bike or a similar one, but I’ve been doing my homework online and the Forme is very well reviewed. One aspect of reading reviews of bikes is that the reviews can often get very technical and pass my understanding of bike technology but I can usually get enough pertinent information. Watch this space.

May has been mainly cold, windy and sunless in this part of the world so far, so it was encouraging to have one sunny day on Friday, when we took our son, daughter in law and two grandchildren, who are visiting from Dubai, to Belhaven beach. There followed a dramatic and colourful sky in the evening. So I went out to the back of the house and took the photos below. The tide was going out and the sky was reflected in the sea at some points. I particularly like the mix of blues, pinks and reds.

Evening sky looking towards Dunbar harbour

 

Evening sky looking towards Dunbar harbour

 

Evening sky looking towards Dunbar harbour

Laurie Campbell, Bring up the Bodies and frosty mornings

On a recent visit to the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club in Aberlady, I was enthralled by the exhibition of photographs by Scottish wildlife photographer Laurie Campbell. The exhibition covers a range of birds, deer, sheep and otters and, for the enthusiastic amateur photographer, is inspirational i.e. maybe you don’t have the expertise, equipment or time to shoot such electrifying photos, you can aspire to do so. For a wider range of Laurie Campbell’s work – photos and books – check out his website – a treat in itself. I emailed Laurie and he kindly sent me the 1st 2 photos below – so many thanks for that.

I’ve just finished reading Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies, her brilliant Booker Prize winning sequence to Wolf Hall which I read previously. This is Tudor England and Henry V111, the autocratic king who is obsessed with having a male heir to succeed him, is getting rid of his wife Anne Boleyn. Mantel brings to life the machinations of the court by focussing on Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s scheming and ruthless fixer, who has to cope with the jealousies, the intrigues, the whisperings and the class distinction so prevalent at the court. We come to admire Cromwell (or Cremuel and he is sometimes disparagingly referred to) despite his readiness to have people imprisoned and executed, so that Henry can have his way. An admirable book.

Teh past week has seen frosty morning and bright days. Big skies – like the ones I used to see in Australia most days – have dominated, and once the frost has lifted, spring might not be far away, you feel. An opportunity for me to get my camera out and photograph the flowers which shrivel into themselves, and take on a white outer layer while preserving their inner health. Photos 3 and 4 below show the frosted coating on polyanthus and a pansy flower which, absorbing the sun’s rays, casts off its frosty coat. More on my Photopeach pages (use the full screen icon at bottom right of picture).

 

Grey heron (Laurie Campbell)

 

Waxwing (Laurie Campbell)

Frosted polyanthus

 

Pansy unfrosting in the sun

Bird paintings and book, and Gosford Bothy

This week we went across to see an excellent exhibition of bird paintings by Mike Warren at the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club at Waterston House near the attractive village of Aberlady, about 20 miles (32K) from Dunbar. This exhibition mainly featured paintings from Mike’s new book American Birding Sketchbook. What strikes the view of the paintings is not just the accurate portrayal of the birds in their natural habitat, but the vibrancy of the colours of that habitat. In some of the pictures, it could be argued that the birds are, in fact, not the most attractive feature e.g. the variety of colours Warren gets in a picture featuring autumn leaves is outstanding, from the subtle yellows to the blowsy reds. So this is not just a book for birders (who I believe prefer this name rather than twitchers) but for everyone who enjoys the outdoors – either in practice or visually or both. I contacted the artist and he’s given me permission to include the front cover of his book below. You can also see some of the stunning paintings for sale on his website. Waterston House itself is a very welcoming place where you can see a range of books, binoculars, cards, posters and for the serious birder, there is the SOC library.

Just across the road from Waterston House is the splendidly named Gosford Bothy Farm Shop, set on the large Gosford Estate, which includes the impressive Gosford House. The farm shop is one of those modern buildings where, once you enter, you are taken back in time, as the shop includes a stunning range of butchered meat, as well as fresh vegetables and a range of “country” items such as jams, pickles, olive oil etc. (Vegetarians maybe stop here) We bought beef olives which are stuffed with wild boar meat. When cooked in a casserole with red onion, dirty carrots and local potatoes, they taste delicious. Beef olives are thin pieces of steak stuffed with, depending on where you buy them in Scotland certainly, sausage meat or white pudding. We also bought some very tasty – and notfatty – lamb and mint sausages. We’ll go back to both the SOC club and the farm shop.

American Sketchbook

Japanese translation, lifting and planting bulbs and Boogie Woogie!

A surprise email this week from Kazu Sunaga in Japan. Kazu translated my 1996 book Teaching information skills in schools (See first photo below). We met up again last year at the IASL Conference in Kingston Jamaica. My publishers had donated a copy of my new book Improving students’ web use and information literacy and at the conference dinner, I was asked to present it to a lucky winner. I asked the audience whose birthday was closest to mine – and it turned out to be Kaza Sunaga. There were some cries of “Fix!” when I told them who he was, but he was a genuine winner. So something to look forward to next year.

In my garden, the seasons change and one lot of bulbs – gladioli (see 2nd and 3rd photos below) comes out and other bulbs – daffodils, crocus and tulips go in. So some are lifted and dried for next year and the next lot are planted. This always reminds me of the novel and film Being There in which a simple gardener becomes a top political advisor with comments on gardening which are misinterpreted as insightful analysis e.g. of the economy – an excellent satire. Planting for next spring – I put the daffodils in one layer in a tub, then more compost, then the smaller bulbs, then more compost and finally spring flowers such as pansies, violas and polyanthus, so you  get a varied display. It’s a very satisfying experience.

Out on my bike this week, I listened (safely with the volume not too high) to The A, B,C, D of Boogie Woogie recorded in France and featuring top pianist Ben Waters and Rolling Stone Charlie Watts. If you like a mixture of blues, R&B and Boogie Woogie, then this is for you. It may not improve your cycling but it will give you a good feeling about life.

Japanese translation

New poetry book, the council’s flowers and my flowers

I’ve just started reading the Poetry Book Society’s  Autumn Choice Place by the American Poet Jorie Graham. It’s an unusual book. Firstly, it is bigger than the normal poetry book, about 50% wider. Secondly, the poems are structured in a way that you are presented with lines of different length, with some lines also indented e.g. from the first poem Sundown:

Sometimes the day

                                                    light winces

                                                   behind you and it is

There is also no punctuation i.e. the following line is:

a great treasure in this case today a man on

However, I soon became accustomed to these quirks (presumably not what Jorie Graham would call them) and enjoyed the poem. The man is on a horse on a beach at St Laurent Sur Mer, famous for being Omaha Beach, the scene of a famous battle in World War 2. The horse has “light-struck hooves” which pass “the edge of the furling break”. I only read one poem per day and sometimes read it twice in one day, so that I can allow its effect on me.

In my home town of Dunbar, the local council do a sterling job of producing colourful gardens across the town each summer. The flowers are late this summer (see below) but have developed very well lately. The first photo below shows part of the gardens at Lauderdale Park  and is a fairly typical example of local council gardens in the UK i.e. shaped sections with groups of flowers placed together to provide an indepth show of colour. This year, for the first time, the council are backing a scheme to plant sections of wild flowers in the town. The 2nd photo below shows an example of this initiative, which is a welcome addition to the town.

As I’ve said before on the blog, it has been a dreadful summer in the UK and this part of Scotland has been no different. My flowers are about a month behind. I guess the silver lining is that we are now getting an unusual display of summer flowers in September. The 3rd photo below shows a flower I’ve grown this year for the first time. It’s Salpiglossis aka Painted Tongue and it’s a delicate creature. I grew them from plugs I bought and thought I’d lost them a couple of times, but bringing them into the house did the trick. See the close up photo below and you’ll see the Painted Tongue reference. For good measure, the 4th photo is of one of my double petunias.

Public gardens in Dunbar

Wild flowers in Dunbar

Salpiglossis

Double petunia

National Trust visit, cycling and new Richard Ford book

My wife and I were given membership of the National Trust for Scotland and have been visiting some interesting old properties lately. We went to The Georgian House in Edinburgh. This was built in the late 18th century and designed by the famous architect Robert Adam and was part of a new building spree in Edinburgh’s New Town, as the rich wanted to move from the overcrowded Old Town. The house is lavishly decorated and for the family which lived there, it was a spacious house in which guests could be welcomed, and more importantly, impressed. However, being a servant in this house was another matter e.g. carrying food up flights of stairs from the extensive kitchen or emptying chamber pots in the master’s bedroom. The dining room was particularly impressive although, interestingly, the cutlery looks crude by modern standards.

Out cycling more often now and on a new mountain bike. The countryside around East Lothian is particularly lush at the moment (see photos below), mainly due to the amount of rain we’ve had i.e. it’s near the end of June and we still await summer. So I cycle past large fields of still green barley, the grain filled heads swaying in the wind, and on past fields of potatoes, which seem to double in size within days. As I cycle on farm tracks also, mud is also a problem in parts and yesterday, I cycled through numerous very large puddles, formed as the water ran off the fields. In Scotland, you can cycle almost everywhere if there is a track. It’s exhilarating, especially when you’ve climbed a steep hill and can go into the higher gears on the flat.

I’ve just received the new Richard Ford book in the post. I know that I should really support the bookshops I go to in Edinburgh but, like most people, I have been Amazoned. Getting a new hardback by such a masterly writer as Ford is a real treat – it could be my birthday! One of his many telling phrases was  “the normal applauseless life of us all” – what a great word ‘applauseless’ is. So, anticipation is high. A new Richard Ford book is one of these books that you almost don’t want to start – as you’ll finish it too soon and might have to wait a few more years for another.

East Lothian countryside

East Lothian countryside

Now the Monday blog, west of Ireland and Australian poet

Retirement has brought a certain lack of routine, and this blog has suffered. So I have changed the title of this blog to James Herring’s Monday blog and this means that I will post an entry each Monday – come what may.

In March, I went to the west coast of Ireland for a week with my wife, for a bit of a family reunion. We stayed just outside the bonnie town of Westport in County Mayo. It’s a picturesque little town and I think that for many people, it might be a bit of a step back in time, especially with some of the shops which have changed little over the years. The other distinctive of feature of Westport and towns like it in Ireland, is the number of pubs. This will change over the next ten years as th recession bites hard. The most famous pub is Matt Molloy’s which is a traditional pub, untouched by the plasticisation which many pubs have suffered. Inside the wall are covered by old mirrors and publ signs, as well as a plethora of photos of folk groups, including The Chieftains of whom Matt Molloy is the leader. Inside the pub, you can see that in former times, like most rural pubs, this pub was a grocer’s store at the front with the bar at the back. The Guinness of course, is wonderful here, as it’s poured slowly and you have to wait for the beer to settle. The photo below is of Westport House a 300 year old mansion set in beautiful grounds and well worth a visit.

Westport House

 I have just finished reading Armour by the Australian poet John Kinsella. The book is a fascinating (and sometimes bewildering) look at many aspects of the Australian landscape. For those of you who are Australian or who know rural Australia, the poems relating to the animals and plants and the recent droughts in Australia, will bring some startling images e.g. “Every year the bright tremor of wattle/yellow light/yellow rattle/ of stamens and pollen”. Kinsella also takes a mystical view of the land and questions what modern Australians are doing to the land. Sometimes I felt that some poems were hard to understand but Kinsella’s flow of words are always meaningful i.e. full of meaning.

Free ebook on school libraries and bird of paradise

Apologies for the lack of blog entries recently. In my email this week, a link for a new – and free! – ebook on school libraries: School Libraries: What?s Now, What?s Next, What?s Yet to Come. You can download this ebook in a number of formats. There 10 chapters in all with a number of contributors to each chapter. The content of the book covers learners, information literacy, teaching, reading, collection development and professional development. I would say that this is a must-see book for all TLs and SLs around the world. The quality of the contributions is variable and you may not agree with the stances taken by some contributors, but it is certainly worth dipping into from time to time. The foreword begins “The future of school libraries and school librarians hangs in the balance.” – an excellent reason to read part or all of this book.

I first saw the bird of paradise flower in South Africa and they are a spectacular species. I’m in Australia at the moment and these flowers can be seen in many gardens around Wagga Wagga. The flowers (see picture below) resemble a bird with a pointed beak and orange crest and must be one of the most unusual and colourful flowers around. When you first see these flowers, you have to look twice as you might think that you are, in fact, looking at birds and not flowers. The question I ask myself is – would these birds of paradise flourish in Scotland, in early December when I return? Mmm – probably not.

Bird of paradise flower

Not so Delicious and snowy creels

For those of you who engage in social bookmarking, you will no doubt have heard that Yahoo are going to close their Delicious site. This is potentially bad news for the many people in schools who have used Delicious and for many TLs/SLs who have encouraged their teachers and students to use this site. It’s also potentially embarrassing for authors of new books who, on p55, sing the praises of Delicious. fortunately in my new book I also cite other social bookmarking sites. All is not lost if you’re a Delicious devotee, as a very clearly written article by Webologist shows everyone how to save and export their bookmarked sites from Delicious. The other lesson, of course, is the transitory nature of most of the web, especially sites which are owned by multinationals like Yahoo.

More snow hereabouts and it looks like the 25 December will be a white one. One of the pleasures of snow is looking at how artefacts can be highlighted, and sometimes transformed, by a coating of snow. In the picture below, taken at Dunbar harbour, I like the way the creels are enhanced by the snow and it changes a utilitarian stacking of working creels into an abstract montage – at least that’s what I see. No blog next week because of holidays. Whatever your midwinter/midsummer festival is, I hope you en joy it.  

Creels at Dunbar harbour

New book and winter surfers

My new book Improving students’ web use and information literacy has now been published although I haven’t seen a copy as yet. The title is admittedly tautological, in that web use could be seen as part of information literacy but my publisher wanted both. So, this is an unashamedly biased advert for this book which every school should have. It contains a mix of theory and practice, although practice is high on its agenda. There is also some of my recent research in the book. Overall, it is a book for practitioners, and I hope that both teacher/school librarians and teachers will be able to put into practice many of the ideas and examples in the book. The examples come from schools across the world who have been instrumental in using ICT effectively in the library and in the classroom. As well as being a book for professionals, many parents would benefit from reading it. As the midsummer/midwinter festivals are about to hit us, and present buying is in action, think of the delight on that person’s face on 25th December as s/he opens up to the new book by James Herring!

Now I would think that the great majority of you reading this blog, and all of you in the southern hemisphere where the summer holidays are about to begin, would associate surfing with warmth. Think Bondi Beach, think Manley Beach, think of a warm sun on you as you watch the surfers glide. This may come as a surprise but here in the wintry north, surfing is very much an all year round sport, with the winter tides bringing in large waves. The gear is certainly more robust but the sport is the same. Not something I indulge in, but yesterday I was walking along Belhaven B ay where Dunbar’s main beach is, and came across two young surfers, which you can see in the photo below. What you see next to the surfers is piles of dirty snow which the council workers dumped there last week. One of the surfers looked up and said “Capturing the madness?” as I took the photo.

Winter surfing