long march

It’s gone five thirty in the evening as I write this, and it’s still light outside. Spring is coming, and it seems only right for me to celebrate these ever longer days by getting out and about. So I am.

This weekend, I’m going to be at the StAnza international poetry festival in St Andrews, for what is only my second ever gig in Scotland. If you’re in the area and fancy coming along, or have friends in the area and fancy badgering them about this feast of poetry, the details are here.

I hotfoot it back down south in time to read at The Poetry Lounge in Ludlow on March 7th, and then I’m having another bash at reading in Galway. Last time I tried to do this – in early February – my plans were well and truly scuppered by a missing ferry, so I spent a couple of hours in Holyhead port and went home. I like to think the ship in question was still up on a ramp with a bloke in overalls looking at it, shaking his head, and muttering something about the ball joint being knackered and the big end past its best and it’s how long since you last checked the oil?

Anyway, I’m assured the ferry has passed its MOT and got a new set of tyres, and is now happily chugging back and forth between Holyhead and Dublin, and I got a refund on my February ticket, so there’s every chance I will manage to get to Galway in time to join a host of wordsmiths at The Museum in the Spanish Arch on March 10th.

Pop by and say hi. Or stare at the empty space where I should have been and know that the ferry is parked up on the hard shoulder with its hazards on and steam billowing from under the bonnet, and I’m wailing and gnashing in Holyhead once more.