Blog Archives

An optimistic note

Posted on October 24, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

(Also available as a podcast here) ‘Put it this way – if it was a horse I’d have to shoot it.’ John, the piano tuner came today. It’s an old joke of his. It’s an old piano, too. Although the … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Wild things

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

(Also available as a podcast here) Five months ago, at the end of April, I wrote here about my reactions to the early stages of Covid and lockdown. From where we are now, that time seems almost like an age … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

No return

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

(Also available as a podcast here) Two weeks ago I wrote about how I was experiencing life in lockdown. This post reached the second-largest number of readers I’ve ever had, the largest being for the post I wrote the day … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

In limbo

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

(Also available as a podcast here) It rained late this afternoon. In the silence that followed the birdsong was almost deafening. What do they notice, I wondered. A change in the air? Fewer people? Less noise? Finely attuned to their … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged | 9 Comments

Good news from the front line

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

(Also available as a podcast here) Front lines are on all our minds right now. I think of poetry as language’s front line, the place where things can at once be at their most considered and their most intense, raw … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Songs of hope

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

(Also available as a podcast here) At this time of year when the air is still and cold, mist gathers over the River Tay and hangs above the salmon pools, making ghosts of the venerable beech trees that line the … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Brexit Day

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

Last year, when I began to write about my great-great uncle, RB Cunninghame Graham, I decided that I would keep him, and politics generally, off the pages of this blog. Today being Brexit Day, I have posted about him and … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Leave a comment

Making sense

Posted on January 7, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

You can now listen to each new post, including this one, as a podcast. I am also gradually adding selected posts from the archive. Click here. If we look for milestones to prompt reflection and personal stocktaking, few come better … Continue reading →

More Galleries | 7 Comments

The company of wolves

Posted on December 11, 2019 by Jamie Jauncey

Twenty-five years ago I published a novel called The Mapmaker. Set in 1349, the year the Black Death reached England, it tells the story of two young men who are driven from their village and find themselves following a mysterious … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Seeing what I say

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Jamie Jauncey

Next week I’m going to Moniack Mhor, the Scottish writing centre in Inverness-shire. It will be the twelfth time I’ve been since 2005 when we ran what was the second-ever Dark Angels course there, and the first one I took … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged , | 3 Comments