Basic facts: I live in Scotland,wit​h my husband, three children and a cat.

I am a fellow traveller on lifes highway that doesn't always use her map.  I like to explore the out of the way places.  I love history, art and literature and the drama of nature.

Sometimes I like to sit and watch the clouds passing by going who knows where?

Anyone interested in discussing poetry, literature,"​ why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings",​ or just having a conversation​.

Poetry I am an addict: I like Chinese poetry, Shakespeare,​ John Donne, the Romantic poets, Robert Frost, and the poets of the Great War.

Clouds.

Baking Bread.

Old Books, especially those that have notes in the margins from other people and have foxed pages.

Reading everything, I am an omnivore when it comes to the written word.

Writing  some poetry which I share with myself! But I also love the physical act of writing, the curl of ink across the white of an empty page.

Knitting and sewing I like the sense of connection with generations of other people who have perspired over their french knots and bullions

Crocheting, lace and edgings, afghans and Christmas bits and pieces

Watching good films and bad films

Philosophy

Gardening, growing herbs and roses, and dandelions(!​)

Early music

Bach, Goldberg variations, his religious music and the well-tempere​d clavier

Mozart, The Magic Flute and symphonies

Haydn

Elgar and Vaughn Williams (I am a bit of a romantic when it comes to music)

Chopin, on a rainy day

Jazz, I love Louis Armstrong especially late Saturday night, any saxophone music

Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Mr Hudson and the Librarians,D​ido,Gold Frapp, James Blunt (his lyrics can be amazing), classic rock....

Lost in Translation,​Studio Ghibli, Metropolis, A Patch of Blue, Rebecca, Laura, Lord of the Rings, Ruby-Jean and Joe,City of Angels, 'You've got Mail', Somewhere in Time, Le Fate Ignoranti, Farinelli, Pride and Prejudice, North and South, Christmas films

Moonlight,To​rchwood, Doctor Who,CSI(all)​, NCIS, Star Trek (all)Firefly​, Buffy,Angel,​Pushing Dasies,Beaut​y and the Beast,Ashes to Ashes,Heroes​, Numbers, the Closer.

Anything with strongly written interesting and possibly flawed characters.  Although sometimes I just want a happy un-ironic ending!

I have eclectic taste in TV and am just as likely to be surfing the documentary and news channels

Persuasion Jane Austen (and all her other books)

Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll

The Complete works of Shakespeare (1st Folio I wish!)

Lousia M Alcotts Little Women saga

Dickens 'A Tale of Two Cities', 'Great Expectations​'

Winnie the Pooh, I do like Eeyore

Poetry anthologies of all descriptions​.

Diaries and collections of letters, Pepys,  the Paston letters etc

Biographies,​ what can I say people fascinate me

Old cookery books

I collect old books.  My oldest, found in the bottom of a cardboard box in a little second hand  bookshop, was published in the late 1640's.  My house is filled with books.

"It is wholly in your own power to make yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts.  Those are nests on the sea indeed, but safe beyond all others; only they need much art in the building.  None of us yet know, for none of us have yet been taught in early youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought - proof against all adversity.  Bright fancies, satisified memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, treasure -houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away from us,- houses built without hands for our souls to live in."  John Ruskin

" If but the will be firmly bent, no stuff resists the minds intent"​

" A green thought in a green shade"  Andrew Marvell

"These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean- gleaming,rin​ged with blue lines:
and feathery, faery dust: wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light:
the strong crust of friendly bread:....
from the Great Lover by Rupert Brooke

"I see nobody on the road," said Alice
"I only wish I had such eyes", the King remarked in a fretful tone..."​ Lewis Carroll