makar

I have always felt that I had a nodding acquaintance with Jackie Kay, our Scots Makar (national poet). On all my visits to the Scottish Portrait Gallery, I passed her sculpture on the stairs and said hello. At the Dunscore Gala last month I bought a copy of her autobiography, "Red Dust Road", at the bookstall, and I've just finished reading it. I was interested to hear that she decided to become a writer after a bad accident on her motor scooter as a teenager forced her to be immobile for many months and she read a lot of books. This reminded me of my own life: "Accidents, if you don't go and bloody die, can offer up a new way to live......Now, this distance away from that accident, I can't imagine my life without it."

Anyway, tonight Jackie Kay was in Moniaive, giving a recital at the Institute and we went along and there she was, a few feet away, warm and friendly and sometimes giggly. You could imagine meeting her on the train and having a lovely conversation all the way to London. Her poems were all the better by being read in person.

And as if that was not enough excitement for one evening, she shared the stage with Pete and Greg, two-fifths of the band Moishe's Bagel. If you haven't heard their music, you're the poorer for it.

And if all THAT was not enough excitement for one day, we went to Lockerbie to pick up Luke, returned from his three month's lifeguarding in the Catskills. The house is filling up...