St Bernard's Well

It was Doors Open Day yesterday and we visited St Bernard's Well alongside the Water of Leith, a building we have long wanted to visit inside.

Hygeia (the ancient Green goddess of health, the origin of the word hygiene) is a well known landmark along the river, but never before have we been able to get so close to her!

Nor have we ever before stepped inside this wonderful building

The spring was originally discovered by schoolboys in 1760 and later became very popular as a place for taking the waters as a cure for various maladies.

I'm guessing this tiny building would have been incredibly crowded at the height of its popularity! Nowadays its only open on Days Open Days and well worth the visit!

You can see photos from the rest of our walk yesterday over on Crafty Green Poet.

Bi-Visibilty Day

It's happened every year since 1999, but I didn't even know until two minutes ago that Bi-Visibility Day existed - so much for the visibility part of that then!

Anyway instead of concentrating on what I was supposed to be doing I found myself browsing the web for articles and here are some good ones I found:

Ignoring the B in LGBTQI denies us our identity by Vonny Moyes in The National

Why I don't like being asked which gender I prefer by Zachary Zane on Bustle

There's even a bi pride flag (which I wasn't aware of until just now). 

And remember, if you're bisexual, this is the day your invisibility cloak doesn't work, so no trying to rob a bank....

The Lure - film review

The Lure is a wonderfully retro Polish musical featuring sister mermaids with vampiric tendencies who are taken on by an underground nightclub to perform backing vocals and striptease. Golden is the sister who most feels the lure of being a vampire, while Silver is the sister who tries to restrain her vampiric tendencies and falls in love with the band's bass player. However their love is doomed, she is a mermaid and he is a human and it's impossible for them to be together. At the same time, mermaid myth says that any mermaid who falls in love with a human who then marries another human will turn to sea-foam on her lover's wedding day..... Is Silver herself therefore doomed?

This is a wonderfully atmospheric film, coping equally well with punk concerts and underwater scenes. It's fun and upbeat but has a melancholy heart. Well worth watching.

The Lure is showing as part of Edinburgh International Film festival:

2055, 24 June at Cineworld.

 You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:





Endless Night.



Homo Sapiens.


Belles Familles.

The Olive Tree.

 Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.

The Mine.

The Islands and the Whales.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople. 

Bugs - are insects the food of the future?

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films

Sandwick Museum, Shetland

I loved the tiny museum at Sandwick, which we visited in Shetland. It focuses on the history and culture of the surrounding area, particularly fishing. It's beautifully laid out, centred on an old fishing boat.

Sandwick is the starting point for the wonderful evening cruises to see the storm petrels on the nearby island of Mousa. I'll be blogging more about that in the near future over on Crafty Green Poet.

Bards in da Bog

Shetland Islands Council has an innovative way of finding new audiences for poetry - putting poetry in public toilets with the Bards in da Bog project!

We had a wonderful holiday in Shetland - you can read more about it here and I'll be blogging more over the next week or so over on Crafty Green Poet.

A Cento for NaPoWriMo

In a war zone existence, delimited

by snipers, landmines and hostile troops,

Grey sky reflects in glass houses

and everyone is throwing stones.

She carries her mourning

gravely through the streets

She finds herself looking out for him

but every night, she goes home alone.

Hiding in lofts with sandbags at the door

he watches war 24 hours on TV

but at night their minds meet

and the ghosts of his words sadden her.

Put them in any two squares of a chessboard

and they would recognise each other -

but for now they are lost. 

***

I used the prompt from Found Poetry for today's poem. A Cento is a poem made up of lines from other poems, traditionally usually lines from other people's poems, but this prompt suggested using lines from your own poems (you can use one or two lines from each poem, mostly here I've used two lines from each poem). This was quite a tricky exercise and I'm not entirely happy with the result. However I was very happy to read through some of my old poems again with fresh eyes! 

Latest gothic jewellery creations

I do like goth style, and, as anyone who follows my Crafty Green Poet blog will know, I also like making jewellery and refashioning vintage and 'broken' jewellery. 

This black velvet choker was included in one of the bags of 'broken jewellery' that I bought recently in a second hand shop. The original pendant was missing so I added this cat charm from my stash.

The elements of the necklace below also came from a bag of 'broken jewellery'. The pendant was originally one of a pair of earrings, but after wearing them one day when out to supper with Crafty Green Boyfriend and almost ripping my ear off, I decided that they would be better as pendants. So I replaced the earring hooks with loops and hung them on smart black necklace threads (which also came from a bag of 'broken jewellery. it really is amazing what good quality items end up in these bags!) This one is mine

and the other one is for sale in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop, you can see it here.

If You had a SuperPower what would it be? by Christopher Holley

This is the latest children's book from Christopher Holley, this time illustrated by Kabita Studios.

The first half of the book asks, in entertaining rhyme, what superpower would you choose, for example:

Would you dare to climb buildings with no safety net?
Have nice cozy chats with your family pet?

Once the reader has thought about which wacky, impressive superpowers he or she might want then the book turns to reality and points out that actually, you don't need a superpower at all, you can change the world around you just as you are, starting with small, but meaningful actions, for example:

When a new kid arrives from someplace out of town
 Say "hello there!" and offer to show them around.

So this is a fun, entertaining and useful book to help children realise that they can be valuable members of society.

If You Had a Super Power What Would it be? by Christopher Holley, illustrated by Kabita Studios.

You can read my other recent reviews of books by Christopher Holley by following the links below:

The Moustache Fairy.


Chumbalina the Plump Princess.

A World Without Water.

 Disclaimer, I was sent free e-copies of these books to review. 

 As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Dean Village, Edinburgh

more photos from today's walk over on my Crafty Green Poet blog.

The Moustache Fairy

Everywhere he goes Alvin is teased, bullied and discriminated against because he doesn't have a moustache. School history lessons focus on the history of moustaches, fairground rides ban people from riding if their beards aren't bushy enough and his sister Alice teases him mercilessly.

Alvin tries desperately to fit in:

'He wanted a moustache so badly he was willing to do anything for one.  His first attempt was a simple solution. He drew one on with magic marker. There was nothing magical about it'

Alvin finally contacts the Moustache Fairy who agrees to help but has run out of moustache magic! Will Alice step in to help the fairy solve her brother's problems?

This is an entertaining tale of one boy's attempts to fit in. It's also a story about wanting to be grown up and being in that stage where you think you're behind your friends in terms of becoming an adult. 

The Moustache Fairy by Christopher Holley, illustrated by Kabita Studios

You can read my earlier reviews of Christopher Holley's Children's books by following the links below:

Chumbalina the Plump Princess.

A World Without Water.

 Disclaimer, I was sent free e-copies of these books to review. 

 As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.