Green Christmas Cards

I made these Christmas cards from reused waste card from the office, reused wrapping paper and reused wrappers from fair trade chocolate bars.

Frosty Shadows

First frost on the bridge by the weir at Colinton on the Water of Leith Edinburgh. I took this photo last Monday during my weekly walk along this stretch of the river.

Autumnal trees, Princes Street Gardens

Perfect blue skies, a chill in the air, the last leaves on the trees. Twenty chaffinches feeding on the grass and bathing in puddles.
Top photo silver birch; bottom photo one of the several beautiful ash trees in Princes Street Gardens.

Bank of Reason

Yesterday I was at the open event to launch the Bank of Reason, a project of 1 mile square. 1mile² is a three year global arts programme by Visiting Arts. The project invites communities to map the biodiversity and cultural diversity of their neighbourhood, working with artists and ecologists. Communities are linked across the world through an internet platform that shares and challenges their perceptions, ideas, experiences and creativity and encourages new connections between people. 1mile² provides opportunities for contemporary artists to undertake a collaborative investigation of arts, biodiversity and community.

For 1mile² Edinburgh, Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich and the Collective Gallery invite you to join them in forming The Bank of Reason. Working with an ecologist and an economist Zoe and Neil will lead tailored walks to explore the diversity of Edinburgh’s city centre. The walks will be followed by discussions that will feed into The Bank of Reason – a repository of ideas for a sustainable future.

The walks will take place on Saturday 28th November and Saturday 5 December. There will also be activities on the Sundays of these weekends too. You can find out more and sign up here.

Human Genre project

I have a haiku/senryu up at the Human Genre project, you can read it here.

The Human Genre project is looking for very short fiction and poetry about genetics. You can find out more here.

More Frost

more photos from yesterday's walk along the Water of Leith, as is the new header.

for Nature Notes.

First Frost

The trees, mostly bare branched now, reach up to perfect blue skies. Melting frost falls like rain with a flurry of last leaves. Coal tits chatter.

A dog walker stops me. 'You've not got a dog!' he says surprised. I nod and smile. 'But everyone who walks here has a dog!'. He walks on shaking his head, his dog trotting along after him.

Frost white grass -

a thin mist rises

from the river.

A dipper calls loudly and flies quickly upstream.

along the Water of Leith