Shona MacLean
@shonamaclean
Scottish writer. Not sure about this at all.
An absolutely mad amount of cherries overhanging the cycle path betwen the old lane and the busy road into town just now. I didn't do so well with the rasps, though, as they were growing on the other side of a ditch, and I'm not at the cycling in my wellies stage. Yet.
I wasn't sure for the 1st few pages, but my goodness, once we're on the island, one quotable line after another. For instance, on his grandmother's disregard for the style of her fringe, "She simply needed a way to end her hair and start her face." Top notch stuff.
Appearing at Wigtown book festival on Wed 30th September at 4.30 p.m. to talk about The Cromarty Library Circle.
Took my new shopping bike out on it's maiden voyage today. In Tesco, reached for what I thought was a 4 pack of Irn Bru, turned out to be 12. "Och, it'll be fine," I thought. 3 and 1/2 miles home with 12 cans on Irn Bru on my back. #tooscottishformyowngood.
The mere fact of being in Copenhagen makes your book automatically match your clothing.This does not appear to happen at home. I will maybe just stay here.
Well done to the P&J for not letting this one be hidden away. Despite police advice, 6 male councillors vote to allow a taxi license to be kept in the name of a 47 year old male taxi driver found guilty of raping an 18 year old female passenger. All 4 women on the licensing committee voted against.
The 1st in an occasional series of my favourite bike shelters/stands. Singleton of Ord Distillery. Very nice coffee, and a good place for a meeting (the visitor centre, not the bike shelter).
My sister just sent me a photo of us in what may be one of the most 70s photos in existence.
I suppose this'll be you that bought this, @profmurdoch.bsky.social Have you drunk it yet?
Hurtling towards a huge deadline, I've almost totally run out of capacity for longer reads, but I found 'The Little Review' in @portybooks.bsky.social and it is brilliant. Really intelligent, incisive and entertaining. Like an old style review from yesteryear, but contemporary. And little.
A long read and a story quite brilliantly done. Planning to use 'warly' and 'wonderly' and especially 'wroth' all the time now.
I've never heard as much cheering at a book event as I did tonight @portybooks.bsky.social event at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh for Douglas Stuart bring chaired by Nicola Sturgeon for the UK launch of John of John. So much love and pride for this amazing writer. Also, Nicola's shoes.
I knew by p3 that this book was a keeper. The 1st woman we meet is cooking. Something is burning. She has frequently informed everyone that she is "not a *#@*%@! cook". She's "growling at the bread,which she shovels out of the oven". Am going to have a t-shirt emblazoned with "I am Jennot".
Tiny wee baby snail on the bin lid this morning. Have a nice day, little snail. Please do not eat my flowers, should I ever make it to the the garden centre and then actually get them planted.
In the white heat of a fast-approaching deadline, I have assured my husband (who just came in to check that I was okay), that I have a system, and I know where everything is. I did not tell him that should my index card box be in some way lost or destroyed, life as we know it is over.
Having my breakfast in the private lounge of a tiny C18th inn in which Bram Stoker once stayed, on the edge of the Moray Firth. Just peak everything.
Cannot believe I've won the entire Wolfson History Prize shortlist in their competition here on Bluesky. Thank you soooo much! I@wolfsonhistory.bsky.social (The only one I already had was the brilliant Embers of theHands by Eleanor Barraclough).
What a glorious, generous, brilliant book from @damianbarr.bsky.social I've been intrigued by the story of Robert McBryde and Robert Colquhoun ever since I saw the The Two Roberts exhibition years ago in the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. I wish I could go back in time and see it again now.
They can't be more of an impediment than dogs, surely? (It appears to be time to pack up for the night).
Bought today at the library book sale. I listened to an audio version of this while I was working on my last book, trying to get into the mind of an educated young Scotsman of the 1830s. 'Mad as a bag of spanners' is the phrase that stuck in my mind. I'm curious how it will seem actually reading it.
It may just be me, but I am seeing a cross between the Pictish Beast and a gormless Labrador (2/3 down and just over 1/2 way across) in this 1836 map of the Cromarty Firth and Nigg bay. Once you see it, you will not unsee it.
Some neighbours in our village put up this lovely Little Free Library on their fence. Made their own expense to replace an earlier one that wasn't waterproof. Adding something good to the community.
'Read Scotland' bag from The Highland Bookshop in Fort William. So many of my favourite writers on here (I would add Andrew Greig and Iain Crichton Smith and some others). You could not pay me enough money to get this bag off me.
Drumochter Pass. Highest point on the British rail network. Nearly got it.
My contribution of a fossil viewed in February at St Andrews Wardlaw museum: a fossil fish slab excavated in Fife, 1850s, by University mineralogist, Professor Matthew Foster Heddle.