Book Launch

In Cardigan on Thursday night in the rain for the launch of Sixty Poems for Haiti ,edited by Eli Niland and Maggie Harris. I was asked to contribute and so am at the Welsh launch of the book. A shame more people didn't turn up,especially as the venue had a stage,microphone and bar. The audience were appreciative even if the weather wasn't. A long drive home,the roads alive with leaping frogs and toads.

BACK ON LINE

At last I'm back on line and catching up on emails-383 of them- after I spent a few days at the Hay Festival, and then 183 after the computer went on a go slow and had to go in for a service. It took ages to sort and I had to buy a new router, but I'm back in the swing of things now with a poem appearing in an anthology for Haiti which is due out in July.

Nothing happens through the post any more,which as several things haven't arrived ,is perhaps a good thing except I don't like correcting proofs on line. I print them out and use a red pen.A pdf file that you can't correct a spelling mistake on is a nightmare. So as I haven't seen a proof of my poem,which has probably already been printed and packaged,I hope there are no typos in my few lines.

Seeking

I am searching for grants to help defray the publishing costs of a writing group anthology. I know there are funds out there....... somewhere.

Our editor applied to the Arts for all Lottery fund. His Arts Council advisor was sure we'd be successful. We had a constitution, accounts, project all ready, but we didn't get a grant.

It is very disappointing when that happens, so I've taken up the baton and am seeking, searching, delving for some small grants to make a dream a reality.

An Anthology is a perfect achievement for a writing group. It is inclusive and showcases the group. It is wonderful for morale, a good opportunity for a launch party, and the publicity re-energises the group,and often new people join.

As I phone and email and find that a lot of community funding no longer exists I am down-hearted. Local projects are important for communities. The village shops and post offices have been closed, many of the smaller schools also, and the pubs can't make a living. A community needs its meeting places.Ours is a 1950s hall, their committee are busy fund raising to upgrade. There is a graph of progress on the wall. We met in it when it was cold and we had to wear our coats and scarves. Now they have put in double-glazed windows and new heating. We can write without our coats and scarves. Like them ,our fund raising is piece-meal:raffles, book sales, car boot sales. A small grant would boost our fundraising, and make seeing work in print a closer reality.

We will get there, but somewhere there is a grant for a small rural based writing group. I have to seek it out so we can apply.

WAITING FOR RAIN

Two weeks without rain and the garden is dusty and dry. The water butt, full of March rain,is now empty. The air is heavy. Is it volcanic dust or just the lack of moisture usually present?

Usually, when the weather is good I make for the sea, but I've been too lethargic to go, blaming it on the weekly increase in the cost of petrol, but it is more than that. I have become tired and lack the motivation.

I remember one June a few years ago when the weather was hot and sultry, and then at last it rained. We went out to dance in the rain, to feel its cool wetness on our skin and hair. I am waiting now for a shower,for my bleached out honesty flowers to be refreshed to their bright purple-pink colour, and for the air to feel less dusty and dry.

OUR CAT HAS A FACEBOOK PAGE

My son and his friend have made a Facebook page for the cat. The cat isn't fussed about it, and I can't find the page as my son has forgotten the password. I have several passwords and always find I can't access things as I've used the wrong one.

My eldest daughter used to change her password every week,and then couldn't use the school computer system as she couldn't get in. I am like that with pin numbers and use the wrong one on the wrong card.

Life seems to be so complicated now,and no one writes letters or sends postcards. Why should they with the post going up yet again? So there are e cards and animated e mails and Facebook where you can see the social life of your cat,if you can dredge your memory for the right password.

When I was a child a password was something special;it was the word chosen that let you into the group.The letters spelt out a magic, and doors opened

SPRING

So it is officially Spring ,and yesterday I dug my vegetable patch over ready for planting. It was a glorious morning, but it rained in the afternoon. Now my garden is full of cats thinking that this soft earth has been dug over just for them.

What makes Spring:the daffodils and bluebells or the bird song. The brighter mornings and the longer evenings. It is all about light. And Easter,that Pagan festival, linking the Passover and the Resurrection by falling on the first full moon after the equinox.

Rabbits, hares,eggs-it is fertility-the birth of the new light.

WRITERS' DAY

What is a group of writers called? A flock,a congregation, a colony a culture, a shrewdness,a murder? Here we all are promoting our books,gathering information,talking writing, meeting old friends, making new ones. It is cogenial especially when you realise how many published writers are actively involved in writing groups in west Wales.

So home with a clatter of books I'm eager to read,but I'm too tired.I arrive home to a different reality,a reality where writing isn't centre stage,and what a group of writers is called is irrelevant.