Creative Blogger Award

I was delighted that Angie awarded me this a few days ago. The idea now is that I share seven secrets about myself. So here are seven, possibly not so secret, things about me:

1. I recently joined Twitter and am suprised by how much I'm enjoying it! If you're into that sort of thing you can follow me at: http://twitter.com/craftygreenpoet

2. Actually this one may be a secret - I've been offered an exciting new job. My current job is coming to an end at the end of March but straight after Easter I'll start a new one. I don't want to count my (organic) chickens before they're hatched so I won't say more than that until things have been finalised.

3. I have a poetry chapbook coming out soon! You can find a sneak preview of the front cover here. More details as I get them!

4. I was recently chosen as Blog of Note, which has meant a lot of new followers (hello there!) and a lot of extra spam (I'm hoping this is only temporary, otherwise I'll need to resort to comment moderation).

5. I'm no good at these kinds of lists so will stop here....

Then i need to pass on the award to seven other bloggers. There are a lot of very creative blogs out there and I’m reluctant to choose but I thought I’d highlight:

Two Creative Blogs that I’ve discovered since joining Twitter:

Nat Hall’s Nordic Blackbird – Nat shares words and photos of Shetland and makes me want to visit again that wonderful group of islands to the far north of Scotland.

Claire and her family blog at The Spider Tribe's Bardic blog – the family are dedicated nature lovers, and they share poetry, drawings and photos of their observations

Four Creative Bunny Bloggers

Diana Moll’s Qi Papers – lots of wonderful rabbit stories with lovely photos, oh and paintings too.

Glenna’s Eye of the Needle – bunnies and cross stitch!

Alice's Potentially Nervous – bunnies and lovely photos and a new bunny merchandise website to visit

Annette's Dragon House of Yuen - real live rabbits and wonderful fabric hares.

Three Other Creative Blogs

Jasmine's Natures Whispers - beautiful felt creations

Cathy's One Pink Goose – sharing her own beautiful artwork and that of so many other wonderful artists

Angie herself has a lovely blog of short poetry and photos.

Oh and thanks to Rachel for saying such nice things about this blog in her recent post here!

Awards all round!

I was delighted to be awarded the Kreativ Blogger award from Freckles and Deb. I'm supposed to share 7 things about myself and then pass the award on to seven bloggers. Well as I did a similar list recently, I thought for something different, here are 7 things about me that have nothing to do with the environment!

1. I'm left handed but only with writing, with most other things I'm ambidextrous or right handed.
2. I can't knit.
3. I've never had a pet cat, though I grew up with the neighbour's cats preferring me to their own family.

4. I speak German, Italian and some French

5. I appeared in a production of Lorca's Blood Wedding when I was 17.

6. I used to be a charity fundraiser.

7. My favourite colour is green.

Rather than choose 7 bloggers to pass this award to, I'll pass it on to all of you!

I'm also delighted that Simon Kewin at Spellmaking awarded the Superior Scribbler Award to Bolts of Silk, the poetry journal I edit. I'd like to pass this award on to everyone whose work has appeared in Bolts of Silk. You can find links to these writers blogs in the sidebar of Bolts of Silk.

Inspirations

Weaver of Grass has asked us to this week think about who and what most inspires us so here is a short list for me:

Nature - in all its forms, specially birds, even more specially swifts, which seem to embody the essence of bird for me, given they never land except to lay eggs and feed young.....

Poetry - Edwin Morgan for sheer inventiveness; Margaret Atwood for always saying something real with every word; Ruth Padel for electrifying stage presence and many others too many to mention.

Music - The Indigo Girls, who have been my favourite band forever and who can weave politics into their music without anyone even noticing; many others too though.

Visual Art - Andy Goldsworthy - children have been inspired by Andy Goldsworth too to create artworks along the Water of Leith - you can read more here and also see my recent post here, though this is earlier than the date these children were reported to be out, so who made that piece of artwork?

but there is inspiration everywhere if you know how to look and listen.....

Queen of Green and creative too!

Angie of Woman Ask the Question recently awarded me the Queen of All Things award, thank you very much Angie! Now i have to say 7 awesome things about myself and pass the award on to seven other bloggers!

1. Awesome is Crafty Green Boyfriend

2. Awesome is our flat in Edinburgh

3. Awesome is watching the swifts flying outside our windows, even if its been too rainy to fit the nestboxes yet....

4. Awesome is the fact that it's almost the Edinburgh Festivals......

5. Awesome is my musical collaboration with Belvedere Mountain Express.

6. Awesome is also my secret poetry project that hopefully I can talk about soon.....

7. Awesome is the fact that people give me awards like this

I won't however pass this on, you're all awesome and its too difficult to choose. Just as it is with the Kreativ Blogger award, that Michelle from Poefusion has just awarded me - thanks Michelle!

Mug Monday

Well following on from Plate Friday we now have Mug Monday, hosted by Acorn Moon and Weaver of Grass. Here are three of my favourites. The one on the right comes from the same second hand crockery set as the plate I posted in the earlier post. The rabbit mug was a gift I bought for Crafty Green Boyfriend, and typically, one of the few mugs bought new and one of the few to be cracked (we don't drink from it any more)! The middle mug was a gift from my parents many years ago.

Another Award - this time for Bolts of Silk

I'm delighted that Annie over at Ink Haven, who I awarded the One Lovely Blog Award to a few days ago, has now awarded it to Bolts of Silk, the poetry journal I edit. Since Bolts of Silk only posts poetry I thought I would mention this award here! I am supposed to pass this award on to 15 good looking new blogs, but as I just did that recently, I thought this time I would pass the award on to any contributor to Bolts of Silk who wishes to pick it up, so if you meet those criteria, then please consider yourself awarded.

Recently, Bolts of Silk has featured poetry about rivers and gravity, you can read these and more here.

One Lovely Blog Award

I was delighted that Angela of Art Life Stories and A Note from Your Mother , awarded me the One Lovely Blog Award. This award should be passed on to fifteen (count them 15!) good looking new blogs. I may play fast & loose with the "new" part (as Angela did before me!) but these are beautiful blogs I enjoy, which either started within the last eighteen months or which I have only recently discovered. Now this may take some time and is a very difficult choice to make. So let's look for beautiful blogs:

Mr Barrington is one of the newest bunny bloggers and he is truly a beautiful bunny
Marina is a very talented artist and has a lovely blog at La Scatola dei Colori
Weaver of Grass shares a lot of beautiful things in her blog, not least lovely photos of British wildflowers
I'm not a dog person really, but Edward has totally won me over in From the House of Edward. Pamela also shares beautiful pictures and writing.
Elizabeth share beautiful photos and poetry at Luchair
Annie shares beautiful writing at Ink Haven
Na shares very beautiful photos at her new blog Between each Blink
More gorgeous photos from Delwyn at Hazy Moon
Mary at Art Spirit sews amazing dolls and other things, including mushrooms
Carol shares her birdsightings and nature notes from the Fieldbook
Purest Green shares lovely photos of the landscapes and historic buildings of Scotland in Scotland for the Senses
More beautiful words and photos at Lassie and Timmie
Kelly Shepherd shares the beauty of Korea
and finally, because Springwatch has just started on the BBC, the Springwatch blogs

Kreativ Blogger

Thanks very much to Poet with a Day Job for awarding me the Kreativ Blogger Award. The rules are to list seven things I love and then seven bloggers to give the award to. So seven things I love:

1. swifts

2. The Water of Leith

3. Gorgie Farm, especially their rabbits! (The farm has an open day on Sunday, 19 July!)

4. The Isle of Skye

5. Raspberry Jam from Cyrenians Organic Farm, just outside Edinburgh

6. Scottish brewed real ale

7. recycled crafts

And now the bloggers. I would say that all the bloggers that I regularly visit or that are listed on my sidebar are creative, and I don't want to single anyone out at this stage, so....

Influential Writers Meme

Geoffrey Philp tagged me a while ago to name 25 writers who have influenced me, and then tag 25 people. "Influence" does not mean the same thing as "enjoy a lot" so here are some, who have had influence over how I write or how I see the art of writing, in no particular order:

1. Edwin Morgan (poetry)
2. Ruth Padel (poetry and non-fiction)
3. Haruki Murakami (novels and short stories)
4. Polly Clark (poetry)
5. Jackie Kay (poetry, novels, drama)
6. Stephen Pinker (linguistics)
7. Jared Diamond (non fiction)
8. Barbara Kingsolver (novels and essays)
9. Italo Calvino (novels and short stories)
10. Patrick White (novels)
11. Margaret Atwood (poetry)
12. Fernando Pessoa (poetry and creative prose)

Then there are books that are in themselves that are influential even if I am not particularly influenced by the writer's other books, or even if I haven't read anything else by them:


1. Kazuo Ishiguro - The Unconsoled
2. Bahiyyih Nakhjavani - Paper
3. Nuruddin Farah - Maps
4. Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red
5. Heidi Julavits - The Effect of Living Backwards
6. Salvador Plascencia - People of Paper
7. Peter Adamson - The Tuscan Master
8. Anna Maria Ortese - The Iguana
9. Alan Lightman - Einstein's Dreams
1o. David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

By influenced, I really mean these writers and books have really made me think about the potential of language and how it can be used, not that their influence can necessarily be traced in my poetry! Now I'm supposed to tag 25 people to choose their 25 most influential writers, well I'll give it a go:

Fiona Robyn (who I'm going to be interviewing tomorrow as part of her book blog tour)
Carole Thistlethwaite
Susan Richardson
Weaver of Grass
Dave King
Gautami Tripathy
Alison Wiley
Jacqueline Pearce
James Engelhardt
Rachel Fox
Caroline at Coastguard
Deb and/or Whirling Dervish
Colin Will
Davide Trame

No that's not 25, but feel free to add yourself to the list, if you do, be sure to let me know, so i can come and read your list!

More Green Lemonade

Many thanks to George at Lost Night's Scribblings for awarding me the Lemonade Award. The Lemonade Award is for sites that show great attitude and/or gratitude! I'm not going to list blogs here, I think all of you have great attitude!

Bunny Hugs

I was delighted to receive the Hugs award from Faye at Faye's Art Blog. As most readers of this blog know, I am a bit of a bunny hugger, so I'm passing on hugs to:

the ten dedicated blogging bunnies at A Houseful of Rabbits

Miss Eve, Yowlyy's mourning bunny currently searching for a new bun to bond with

Hans, Yohji and Buttons the Furry Butts

Sydney and Tyler the crafting buns at Qi Papers

Freckles the storytelling bunny

and also, because he is such a huggable looking dog, hugs to Edward at The House of Edward

Green lemonade

I was delighted to be recently awarded the Lemonade Award from Rabbit's Guy. He got it from Cara at Doublecat Batik, where I learnt it is an award for cheerful blogging (though elsewhere I read it's for blogging with great attitude)! So that's put a smile on my face. I'm supposed to pass it on, but in case I don't manage to get round to thinking of who to pass it on to, why not all pour yourself a glass of lemonade?

Bookworm meme

I was tagged a while ago by Melissa from Poet with a Day Job to take part in the Bookworm meme.

RULE ONE, I have to grab one of the books closest to me, go to page 56, type the fifth line and the next two to five lines that follow.

Book: Earth for Sale - Brian Tokar

A broader historical outlook on the development of the regulatory system is necessary if activists are to reach much beyond limited, technical debates and regain the inititiative on behalf of public health and ecological integrity.

btw - the book is a fascinating history of environmental activism in the USA, but it is dated and so doesn't give a current assessment of the situation.

RULE TWO, I have to pick five people who love books and who could receive the Bookworm award with honour.

Actually this has been around and about so often that I'll just say, if you want to do it, please do and let me know so I can come and read your replies!

And remember, there's still time to enter my Book Giveaway. I'll be putting names into a hat early next week, if you want to be in with a chance of winning some of these books, please go here.

Friendship Round the World Award

I was delighted and honoured to receive the Friendship Round the World award from Geoffrey Philps. I want to pass this award to all of you who visit my blog, who comment here, who link to me and whose blogs i enjoy visiting. There really is a very international community of bloggers. If you want to get a taste of my international community, just visit some of the links in my sidebar...

Geoffrey recently won the "Outstanding Writer" award from Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, so many congratulations to him for that.

Blogging Friends Forever

I was delighted to receive the Blogging Friends Forever Award from Bondbloke. The “BFF” award is passed on according to the following rules:

1. Only five people are allowed
2. Four have to be dedicated followers of your blog
3. One has to be someone new or recently new to your blog and live in another part of the world
4. You must link back to whoever gave you the award.

So I will pass the award to:

RabbitsGuy (and all the rabbits) at House of Rabbits
Scot at Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers
Selma of Selma in the City
Katherine of Chatiry World
kouji of a Haiku Poem Blog,

and to all of you really, for visitng and saying such nice things when you're here.

Oh and thanks to Melissa of Poet with a Day Job, for sending me a copy of her chapbook Impatiens, which she was giving out to people who commented on her two year anniversary post.

Kreativ Blogger Award

I'm very honoured that Moonroot nominated me for this award! Many thanks indeed! I now need to nominate 6 bloggers and name six things I like. There are actually so many creative blogs out there its very difficult to choose and i could give this award to anyone on any of my links lists. However, my nominations are for these four blogs:

Weaver of Grass for her photos and writings

Bond Bloke for his various creative blogs, but especially Edinburgh Day by Day, full of wonderful photos of the city I live in and A Brush with Art, full of musings about art (and who has co-incidentally given me the Blogging Friends Forever Award, which I'm delighted by!)

Gordon Mason of Catapult to Mars, with its poetry in English, Scots and Spanish and always a carefully chosen image to complement the words.

Arthur Durkee of Dragoncave, a blog of beautiful poetry, prose and photos. He also has a poem up on Bolts of Silk today, which you can read here.

Six (seasonal) things I like:

autumn leaves

geese skeining across the sky

snow on distant hills

the five different shades of rowan berries

the magical glow of the low sunlight

the sparkle of frost

Arte & Pico Award

I was delighted and honoured to recieve this award from Geoffrey Philp , a Jamaican poet who blogs about the literature of the Carribean and South Florida! The rules are:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog so everyone can visit.

3) Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) The award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to link to the“Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5) To show these rules.

NOTE: If the awarded blog owners wish to pass the torch to five others please go to http://arteypico.blogspot.com/and read the rules.

I've seen several posts recently about how hard it is to pass on awards because you don't want to leave people feeling left out or overlooked and I agree!. But on the other hand it's an opportunity to point out some favourite blogs that people aren't necessarily aware of and to encourage people to visit them! It's always a difficult choice, and this time I'm going to mix it up a bit, rather than concentrating on environmental and crafty blogs:

A Wildlife Gardener at Our Little Corner of Paradise for these photos of bees and flowers

PaulS at the shapeshifting Gingatao for constantly doing such wonderful things with words that I never know what to say in the comments section

Alfonso at Paraisos en Obras for making magic with words and for fooling me into thinking I can understand Spanish (this blog is translated into English, so no excuses for not visiting!)

Mistral at Una Teiera per Amica, for sharing such beautiful words and music and for feeding my addiction to Italian.

And the fifth? well you can all share it, because it really is difficult to choose and there really are so many wonderful blogs out there!

Brillante-ly Green

I'm delighted to have been awarded a 'Brillante Weblog' award by Nicole V Lozano of Glass Touch . I am to pass this award on to seven blogs that I enjoy, I've tried to choose a mix of old favourites and blogs I'm just starting to discover and also blogs that offer a mix of creativity and green thinking. Anyway here is the list:

Diana Moll at The Qi Papers - a blog about rabbits and art and philosophy
Liza Lee Miller at The Egrets Nest - poetry and nature
Na at Shadows and Clouds - nature photography and more
Lucy who blogs at Box Elder - poetry, nature and photography and at Out with Mol - short descriptions of her walks with her dog
Duncan Fraser at Ben Cruachan - nature, photography and poetry
Sandy at Gardenpath - nature, photography and poetry

Please take this as the honour it is and pass it on to some of the sites you enjoy. The rules of accepting are as follows:
1) Put the logo on your blog.
2) Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4) Add links to those blogs on yours.
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

A Meme

Linda of Nickers and Ink tagged me with the Super Seven Meme:

10 Years Ago
June 1998 - I had left one job and was just about to start another, just as I am at the minute!

5 Things on My To Do List
Take out the recycling
Write my first villanelle
get a copy made of the key to the backgreen that a neighbour has kindly lent us so we finally get to access the gardens whenever we want....
update my bird records on Birdtrack
send some poems off to journals

Things I'd Do if I was a Billionaire
Pay off my mortgage, give me, my partner and family incomes for life then invest the rest in charities working in the environmental field.

3 Bad Habits
drinking too much tea
laziness (eg about sending my poetry to journals, doing the dusting)
sticking to tried and tested recipes in the kitchen instead of trying new dishes

5 Places I've lived
Manchester (with my parents)
Malawi (2 years)
Cornwall (3 months)
Edinburgh (most of my adult life)

5 Jobs I've had
Science Teacher
Advice Worker (volunteer)
Charity Fundraiser
Charity Development Officer
Director of Charity Regional Office

I'm not going to tag anyone with this, but if you want to take part, feel free - remember to let me know by leaving a comment here! Thanks to Na of Shadows and Clouds for joining in!

A Meme

Yowlyy of Bunnies Needles and Books tagged me with this meme:

Answer at least three of the questions. Yes, I know a few look time-consuming and there are several of them. That's why I only ask for three. See? I'm nice!
Post them and the rules on your blog, and please link back to me here. Pretty please *^_^* ?
Comment here telling me and the rest of our little party where you're at and link to yourself.
That's all!
Oh yeah, don't forget to tag others!
OK... here we go:

What's the last book you read that you thought was really super, inspiring, you'd recommend it to most anyone?
Dream On by Chrystos - everyone should read her poetry - its beautifully lyrical and passionate andalways engaged in issues. She has a real connection with nature.

What food totally grosses you out, you'd never be able to touch it?
I'm a vegetarian and any kind of meat is unappealing but the mice on sticks sold at bus stops in Malawi looked particularly gross...

Did you ever watch a scary movie that frightened you so much you were afraid of the dark afterward? I mean like you're lying in bed trying to sleep, but you have to pee, but you're scared to get up. It doesn't have to be recently; could be when you were a kid. So what movie was it?
I don't watch that kind of scary film! The image of the edge of the forest coming inexplicably nearer for the forest dwellers in The Emerald Forest, which I saw when I was young, has stayed with me though as a very scary image of what we're doing to the earth...

Is there a song that makes you dance every time you hear it?
I'm sure my partner would say 'is there a song that Crafty Green Poet doesn't dance to every time she hears it?'

Tattoos: yes or no? Do you have any? Tell us! Do you think they're gross? TELL US!
I don't have any but i think they can look really nice. I sometimes think about a dolphin tattoo in my shoulder blade....

When's the last time you laughed so hard your ribs ached and/or you nearly peed yourself? What made you do it?
I have laughed like this recently but really can't remember why...

Draw or doodle a picture of your pet(s) and post it if possible. Nothing fancy, don't be shy!
I drew Anya several times, you can see the results here:
Binkying Bunny Easter Card
Round Rabbit
Anya in the magical woods
carboard rabbit puppet

Go through a stack or box of your old music. Stuff that you may not have heard in years. Pick one and tell us about it. Is it as good (or as bad) as you remember?

Well I picked up Dexy's Midnight Runners Searching for the Young Soul Rebels and was really enjoying it and then it started falling apart in the tape machine. If there's any music i don't like any more I give it away to a local charity shop so there is rarely anything in my music collection that I don't like.

Do you still sleep with a stuffed animal? We won't laugh!

I have a few (especailly rabbits and tigers) but I don't sleep with any of them

I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to play along, please do and remember to let me know!