Oh dear, I haven’t written here in ages, mea culpa, and now I’m writing out of self-interest.

So let’s get that over with first: I will be reading on March 6th, 1-2 pm, in what I hear is an extraordinary celebration of poets and poetry. Here is the link: http://www.stanzapoetry.org/festival/poets-artists/bie-brahic. I will be reading alongside other winners of the Wigtown Book Festival 2019 Poetry Prizes. And there are lots of other wonderful events to go to and people to meet, all of which you can see by following the StAnza 2020 links.

I am sitting, with my husband in a Malaucene cafe, over Scotches and email. We don’t have internet in our house in a nearby Vaucluse village. It adds about 2 hours to my daily time for reading, biking and walking, but we do need to catch up on stuff, including the news, once or twice a week. And the Scotch is good, though today we are trying something cheaper than Glenfiddich. There are 2 television sets. One had something about horse racing and the other is too far away to see, though it seems to be mostly ads. When we’ve soaked in internet news for a while we will do something more banal, like grocery shopping.

The weather is cold—there’s a fierce mistral (north wind). Yesterday we hiked part way up the Mont Ventoux and it was snowing halfway up and we hadn’t even taken gloves. But we kept on doggedly and bought a hot water bottle on the way home. Today we hiked to La Roque Alric and back, and that was warmer, even sheltered in places. Too much wind to bike, but we’ve been doing lots of that too. Daily routine: write (me), play the flute (my husband), lunch, bike or walk, read, dinner, read, bed. Lovely.

Beverley Bie Brahic