I had a dream last night that my friend called me to tell me that were 3 baby woodpeckers on Spottiswoode street, I can't remember if I found them or not but I did either have some kind of vision or found a nest with three big blue eggs with brown speckles. Last week I had another nest dream where I was walking around the streets and kept seeing nests in trees and then I came to a house on the wall of which was mounted flat a huge nest lined with feathers and lichens. It was so big I'm sure I could have slept in it. Maybe that's what I'm looking for!


Here is one I saw the other day, it's nice that all the nests are so visible in winter as the trees are bare but sometimes it feels that that may be one of the only nice things about winter. Never mind, in a few weeks everything will be filled with life again but of course winter is beautiful and necessary, it just makes me feel tired and run down.

Since I finished The Waves and To The Lighthouse I started reading the Vintage publication of Selected Letters by Virginia Woolf. I feel that same lovely deep involved feeling that I had while reading Katherine Mansfield's Journal and Larkin's Letters to Monica. I read something so delightful and funny in her letters from her early twenties. When writing to Violet Dickinson, Virginia would often call herself "Sparroy". She seemed to have a complicated system of animals names for her family and intimate friends. "Sparroy" was apparently a fantastical small animal of her own invention, half-bird half-monkey perhaps and capable of snuggling (!) Violet was 20 years older than Virginia and was means to have been very sympathetic and warm and believed that Virginia would one day be a great writer. The relationship was also flirtatious and romantic and occassionaly passionate, at least on Virginia's side.

Your letters come like balm on the heart. I really think I must do what I never have done--try to keep them. I've never kept a single letter all my life--but this romantic friendship ought to be preserved. Very few people have any feelings to express-at least of affection of sympathy--and if those that do feel dont express-the worlds so much more like a burnt out moon--cold living for the Sparroys and Violets.

I also had a little debate with my friend on the subject of reading the private letters of deceased people. He seemed to be greatly opposed to it and saw it as a great intrusion and almost a cruelty to publish these personal documents whereas I have always found it quite natural and never really felt like I was doing something against someones will. Maybe as I am so involved in fiction, I cant see the reality of it and it just feels like another book to me. Many published journals and letters were never intended to be read, some people spend their lives making sure what they write will be publishable. I'm sure there are things I have written which I would never want anyone to read but maybe one should try to let go of these precious feelings about what one leaves behind, whether it be the object of the human body after death or the letters or diaries we might have written. I do believe there is a case for sensitivity if for example, there are other people still alive who may be hurt or deeply offended by certain things being published but if the timing is appropriate and sensitive then I think that if the result of one persons private letters being published is that hundreds or thousands of perhaps (even just one) are able to learn and be enlightened and given joy then it is a benefit that this happened. I did feel slightly strange after this conversation when I then read Virginia Woolfs last letter which was to her husband Leonard and the last lines reading You will destroy all my papers. Maybe I don't really know what is right or wrong after all. That's my usual conclusion for all things...

Oh I wanted to give a sneak-peak of a new set Cherry shot for me when we were first reunited after four years. I don't want to give away too much on what it is about just yet but maybe you can guess....




Tomorrow I will be sending out the first batch of prints I have sold and there are still a couple of each image left from this order so just let me know if you would like one. More info under the spoiler below. Thanks so much to anyone who bought one. I have enjoyed wrapping them up and writing thank you notes :-)





About PRINTS

Goodbye for now. Be warm, read and flourish xx

Thank goodness for books.

For ocular prosthetics, Virginia Woolf, trees that look like owls, bibles with bullet holes and enigma machines see my last journal...

...this journal is just to let you guys know that I am now finally selling 4 special square prints.

PRINTS FOR SALE! PRINTS FOR SALE! PRINTS FOR SALE! PRINTS FOR SALE!


They are 8x8 with a matt finish, printed on Fujifilm Crystal Archive paper. If you would like one they are £20 each including p&p, PayPal to annaleeprints@googlemail.com. Just let me know if you want me to sign it or write you a message or anything :-) I hope everyone is well xx

These are the 4 images you can choose from -





The final print wont have a white line to censor!

From one of my favorite museums The Wellcome Collection.



A recent train journey. I always try to get a better view of that little ruin when I take this route but it's sort of tucked away on a cliff and it's always so quick. I think it looks like a painting. When I was on the same journey last year not far from that same spot there was a field of sunflowers at the very edge of the cliff and looking down was the sea. Over the sea was a rainbow. It was absurdly picturesque.

I arrived into my home station at the same moment that I finished reading the last page of To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I'm not sure that anything will be able to touch the supreme beauty of The Waves but it was an excellent book none the less. It's maybe a shame that I read The Waves only second after Mrs. Dalloway but I think I shall still be able to appreciate all of her books I have still to read.

How did he know? she asked. The wind often changed.
The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women's minds enraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, been shattered and shivered; and now she flew in the face of facts, made his children hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. He stamped his foot on the stone step. 'Damn you,' he said. But what had she said? Simply that it might be fine tomorrow. So it might.
Not with the barometer falling and the wind due west.
To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people's feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilisation so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without replying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. There was nothing to be said.









These are from the Imperial War Museum. I have such a fascination with the way paper looks, not just books but any kind of document or beautiful scrap. And why did I get so excited to see the enigma machine? I know nothing about cryptography at all! Somehow it made me feel really thrilled though. I have oddly noticed that half of my "holiday" pictures are usually of bits of paper that you cannot even necessarily read. Maybe it's just the appeal of marks on paper as I also enjoy making.








I got up really early today to practice Ashtanga yoga at 6.30am. I'm trying to start a daily practice but I'm building it up slowly as it's very intense and I'm trying not to wear myself out so I'm doing maybe every second day for a while or whatever I can fit in with work and things. It felt amazing to be to see the sunrise just as I left class. I noticed on a walk today that someone has "planted" all the old Christmas trees that must have been out for the rubbish collection. Makes them look very sad doesn't it? They could have made a little forest. It's a strange thing to do really, not planting the dead ones but cutting so many down. C'est Christmas!



Talking of trees there were many uprooted in the recent storms we had so it's very sad to see even more dead trees. I thought these chopped up ones looked like weird little owls.





The insides of the trees and all the rings are very beautiful, they are a little blood-like.







Time as he passes us has a dove's wing unsoiled and swift and of a silken sound.

Best to you guys and thanks for all the lovely messages, I really appreciate it, you guys make my day very often xx

P.S. Cherry is working on something for the near distant future.

Happy new. x

We have a wee living tree inside the house and have put little ornaments and lights on it! I enjoy the slightly surreal aspect of that particular ritual. I'm going to plant it in the garden afterwards and I hope the roots won't have been too damaged for it to grow. It's a blue spruce. I hope you're all happy and cosy whatever it is that you do at this time of year. I'm not really fussed about Christmas, it doesn't mean anything to me but I'm happy enough to have a nice dinner with my family and give them presents despite the silly consumer aspect of this period and the irrelevance of religion! Peace and love to all of you and thanks for everything :-) x

I went to Paris with GoGo and we were looked after so well by Spleen, Dwam and Opale and met so many other lovely people. A particular highlight was the great green tea ice cream search with Silphi. I love this site so much sometimes. Thanks to all of you guys too for all the amazing messages and comments and as usual I'm sorry that I am behind on replies, I'll do my best! I hope everyone is happy and well and cosy. It's so strange to think of all the beautiful people and experiences I wouldn't have in life if it were not for this site, I really love this place sometimes :-) xxx


GoGo being the cutest girl in the whole universe!








Then the silliness!



Little wolf girl

I've just woken up to the first snowfall of winter, just a slight white layer over the garden and rooftops. It looks very pretty.

This week I began reading A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin, this is the first time I've read one of his novels after years of reading his poems and letters. It's about a girl called Katherine who works in a library. I started reading it on my long bus journey home from the ornithological library I help at and it was very wintery and cold that day so it was all quite fitting. I don't really know what I think of it yet, it's very uneventful but that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just like a few days passing by. ..."library assistants are forced to do everything to books except read them"... ..."Because Katherine was so young she hitherto thought love a pleasant thing"...

Last week I finally finished reading The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. It is a phenomenological text about how humans experience intimate spaces. There are chapters on everything from huts, to round spaces, to nests and shells, to cupboards, wardrobes and drawers. It was very beautiful and one of the most wonderful things about it was that all his illustration and evidence for these feelings came from poetry and literature. But how else could we describe such often intangible feelings? I don't exactly know how to write about it because it is such an immense and magical book. I feel like it contains the universe. There is actually a very interesting chapter in it on miniature "Words are clamour filled shells, there is many a story in the miniature or a single word." I think that is one of the cleverest ways of thinking of about words and language that I have read. I hadn't thought of it before but it's so obvious. I suppose I was aware of that while reading poetry, that so much can be contained in such a small collection of words and equally that sometimes reading a single word can trigger intense emotions. I just hadn't thought of a word as a miniature before and I think it's such a lovely way to do so. I feel that reading this book has enriched my life and my way of looking at things and also gave words and companion to many things that I feel about life and being alive.






Some pictures from the museum. One day there were three Buddhist monks in the museum wearing their beautiful orange robes and they were looking at the Buddhas, it really made the most interesting scene. I would have liked to talk to them but they were very reserved and only said hello and bowed.




Astronomical almanac and ephemera










It feels like we still have a long winter ahead of us and yet there are already signs that spring will come We planted bulbs a few weeks ago and they have been coming up already, these ones are Oxalis triangularis, they are so interesting in that their leaves close up at night and so they look like little mushrooms. Here they are by night and by day.






As always I hope you are all well and I really appreciate everyones support and all the great people I've met on here and as usual, I'm very far behind with my correspondence so I apologise for that! I actually got an anonymous gift from someone here, it was Spinoza's Ethics. Let me know who it was from so I can thank you. I am looking forward to reading it.

x

The sea was so calm today. Not many things make me feel as good as a day by the sea.

Today I went to the a nice part of the coast to watch birds. I saw a kingfisher, lots of widgeon, pochard, teal, mallard, goldeneye, eider, velvet scoter, long-tailed duck, canada geese, barnacle geese, white fronted geese from Siberia for the first time, pink-footed goose, slavonian grebe, cormorant, tufted duck, pied wagtail, house sparrow, crow, jackdaw, mediterranean gull (1st winter to be precise), black-headed gull, common gull, lesser black-backed gull, greater black-backed gull, herring gull, starling, redshank, bar-tailed godwit, turnstone, grey plover, oystercatcher, lapwing, curlew, red-breasted merganser, goosander... Maybe more that I cannot recall right now.

An amusing little interlude occurred -

The sea wall is covered in that beautiful deep yellow lichen Xanthoria Parietina. I was leaning against it and staring out at the gentle waves when a slightly worried looking gentleman walked towards me asing if I had seen a black labrador who had just run away from him. I said I was sorry, I hadn't seen it. The man suggested that if I did see it then I should take it's collar. 'Just take her by her collar' he said. 'Like this' while demonstrating the action of taking a dog by it's collar with index and middle finger. He said that he was going to back in that direction >>>> and that then if I saw anyone cycling past in the same direction I could tell the cyclist what he looked like and that they could then look for him and tell him that I had the dog and then he could walk back towards where I was. It seemed quite funny though I of course hoped he would find his dog. He told me his wife had gone in the other direction with the chocolate labrador who was better behaved and had not run away. I said ok, I would follow out his instruction if I should happen to see the dog. We then briefly talked about birds as he had binoculars around his neck too. Everyone today seemed to be looking for the white fronted geese from Siberia but neither of us had seen them yet. After a few minutes he said 'Anyway, I can't really talk about mediterranean gulls any longer because the wife and the dog are the priority. I had better be off.' A few minutes later once the man was out of sigh I saw a lady with a black and a brown labrador. As she came towards me I pointed at the black one and enquired if it happened to be the dog who had run away. 'Yes!' she said, 'Never go bird-watching with this dog because she knows when you're watching something else and have your guard down and that's when she takes her chance!' Then she told me that the dog had run to the houses at the other side of the river, had gone into someone's house and was being fed on sausage rolls. At this I laughed until she looked quite cross and said 'It's not funny! He will never forget that, now every time we try to take him out he will think that if he runs away he will get sausage rolls.' I met them again later and pointed out the white fronted geese (from Siberia) to them and they seemed quite happy about that.

With GoGo <3
Ardnamurchan last month.
x