Despite the moody weather, the crafters at the Midlothian Open Doors Day at Penicuik House drew a considerably larger crowd of visitors than last Sunday when, ironically, the sun had behaved much better. Laryna's Nuno Felting workshop at the Arts Centre produced some remarkably good and colourful work from the inexperienced participants. Unfortunately for the workshop leader herself, the day ended with her being inadvertantly locked into the building when the keyholder departed without checking whether she was the last person out or not.
Despite the moody weather, the crafters at the Midlothian Open Doors Day at Penicuik House drew a considerably larger crowd of visitors than last Sunday when, ironically, the sun had behaved much better. Laryna's Nuno Felting workshop at the Arts Centre produced some remarkably good and colourful work from the inexperienced participants. Unfortunately for the workshop leader herself, the day ended with her being inadvertantly locked into the building when the keyholder departed without checking whether she was the last person out or not.
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The Arts Centre in West Street was the venue for "Liszt in Scotland", a talk and illustration (slides and music) by Derek Watson who, the previous evening, had hosted Janis Mackay's meet-the-author session in his West Linton bookshop. The subject focused on Franz List's concert tour of Scotland in 1841, while at the height of his superstardom as both composer and concert pianist, and fanned out to include the careers of some of his Scottish friends and contemporaries in the world of classical music. The tour was nothing if not hectic - seasickness and hangovers featuring regularly, and at one stage, Liszt and his party were commuting back and forth on a daily basis, between Glasgow and Edinburgh, by coach and horses - trains coming along just a few years too late for their benefit. The talk was punctuated by slides and music of the period, and no less usefully, by an interval for drinks. Contrary to the heart-warming image of Liszt on the flyers for the evening, there is, sadly, no evidence to suggest that he ever wore a tartan tammy while in Scotland. A heavy duty day for Janis Mackay, author of the Magnus Finn books for children. Her first stop was Strathesk Primary School where she workshopped with a group of 9-12 year olds, before heading to Carlops to lead a creative writing workshop for adults. Her day was completed more gently with a session of open poetry readings with a small group in the Yurt, where intermittent rain squalls rattled fiercely on the roof – whether in applause or otherwise, was unclear. On Thursday she is scheduled to take a creative writing workshop for adults at 10am in the Penicuik Arts Centre, followed by a story-making session for children (7+) at noon, and a “meet the author” and book signing hour and a half from 6.30 in the West Linton bookshop. Busy lady Admirably undaunted by this schedule, plus a trip to London in between, she will be back on Saturday 10th for further classes for children, in the Tipi at Whitmuir from 11 – 1pm, and in the Yurt from 2-3.30pm, and lastly, she will join Aonghas MacNeacail and others for True Voices- poetry and music, in the Yurt at Craigiebield. Assuming you’ll have had your tea by 6.15pm, it’s time to get on yer bike, for the Bike Tour – on the Penicuik – Rosslin Esk Valley Mill trail cycle path. By the time you get back and shower off the honest sweat, an already nicely warmed-up evening of Jazz with Sophie Bancroft awaits you at The Hub (7.30 – till you drop). post script:
never made it to the Craigie, but heard you were the poorer for having missed the feat of their funky tunes and rythms! Sunday – but no rest for the wicked, as the few and beleaguered volunteers rose, blinking, into the light of a startlingly bright blue day, to prepare the story-tellers yurt in the grounds of the Craigiebield Hotel, and to set up the craft stalls in the grounds of the elegantly dilapidated Penicuik House. The theme of the day turned out to be Scottish history – lots of it. Indoors from the alfresco craft stalls, Arran Johnston of the Prestonpans Trust delivered his well-rehearsed party-piece on the making of the eponymous tapestry, modelled on its Bayeux inspiration, and visually recording the gory progress of the Battle of Prestonpans – arguably Scotland’s last significant victory over the Auld enemy until Wembley 1967. Arran gave us a slick and entertaining run-through of the tapestry’s conception and creation, involving stitchers – experienced and otherwise – from every staging-post in Scotland on Bonny Prince Charlie’s expedition from Arisaig to the muddy East Lothian field where he, and a few thousand Highlanders, routed a much more numerous English force, in the space of ten brutally triumphant minutes. The 105 metre tapestry, by contrast, took the international team of stitchers around a year to complete – a triumph in itself. Meanwhile, outside, where the sun was still unaccountably refusing to give way to the usual autumn showers, crafters and visitors were being delightfully diverted by the Peebles musician, Jon Redpath’s Hurdy Gurdy - one of only eight in Scotland, France being, apparently, a much more welcoming environment for this exotically beautiful instrument. The overwhelming competition from the bagpipes would seem to be the cause of the former’s scarcity here. From there, to the Open House Trail venue of Rosslin –based Irish artist, and winner of the previous year’s local Turner Prize, Aine Devine. Aine’s portraits of the famous, including a poignantly evocative study of the late Mo Mowlam, and the less famous – her own family - are boldly and beautifully realised works – a mixture of stark energy here, and a kind of otherworldly, contemplative quality there. Very well worth seeing. Check out the festival venue map and times. And go there! The evening shift took us to Rosslyn Chapel for Henry Marsh’s reading of his latest collection of poems, “The Hammer and the Fire”, interluded exquisitely by the fiddle music of Ian Laing. The collection’s subject was John Knox and the Scottish Reformation, with a welcome co-starring role for Mary Queen of Scots. The slightly eerie, candle-lighted allure of the now world-famous chapel, was a perfect backdrop to the poems’ melding of recorded history with Marsh’s moving and imaginative explorations of the inner turmoil of his subjects. History, leavened with poetry, and sweetened with music. The first half of the evening followed Knox’s ironic evolution, from priest to galley-slave, and on to the fiercely inspirational voice of the Reformation. One couldn’t help wondering however, what the Old Testament austerity of his beliefs would have made of the elaborately pagan imagery of much of this chapel’s mesmerising architecture. And on then, to the main target of his best-selling “The First Trumpet Blast Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women” – beautiful and ill-starred Mary, Queen of Scots. Born into the long-running dynastic feud between the Tudors and the Stuarts, and dumped, by the death of her father, James V, on the throne of Scotland when she was barely a few days old. Like many a female celebrity down the ages, her taste in men was truly shocking – from child bride to the sickly – and soon-to-be-dead – Dauphin of France, to the equally soon-to-be-murdered Lord Darnley, and finally on to mad, bad, and dangerous-to-know Bothwell. After all this, and eighteen years under house arrest by her dear cousin, Elizabeth the First, of that other place, her last breath on the executioner’s block was probably a sigh of relief. |
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