Changes

October 25, 2025 sareenmclayLeave a comment

Education, salvation and *damnation.* Aberdeen with the beautiful gardens below.
(Central Library, St Mark’s Church and His Majesty’s Theatre.)

Recently I was asked to take a photo which would represent Aberdeen. Where to start, the imposing tower of the Marischal College, the miles of beach, the bandstand at Duthie Park? (Not to mention Old Aberdeen, Footdee/Fittie, I could go on …)

The photo is for a writing group.

I have been the local volunteer co-ordinator of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI – or Scooby as it is known!) these past few years.

Our group encompasses Aberdeen and the Northeast but truly, it has members from around Scotland. It is a wonderful group of writers who support one another and provide insightful and helpful critiques as well as a whole host of encouragement and bookish advice.

Recently we made the decision to open the group to all, so you no longer have to be a member of the SCBWI to belong. Scooby has also been going through a lot of changes recently, hence the need for a photo of Aberdeen so our group can be mentioned on the website. I hope this photo does Aberdeen justice.

New members are very welcome and if you would like to join, please feel free to DM me on my Instagram or Facebook page.

The same morning I took the photo of Aberdeen, I nearly missed my bus. I was distracted, taking pictures of the clouds because, why not? I am always trying to remember the names of the different types of clouds, not very successfully, I admit, but it is fun trying.

Standing at the bus stop cloud spotting seems a good use of time, craning my neck to look up rather than down at my phone. The other day, when I began to think about what I would write in this post, I knew I had to include these two photos.

Today, I am on the train writing this up, trying not to be too distracted by the sheer variety of white puffs in the sky (one looks like a giant zeppelin!).

By chance, I bought a magazine for my journey. This time it was Prima and inside, guess what, you’ve got it, there is a whole article about skygazing. Gotta love a coincidence.

Positive psychologist, Paul Conway has coined the phrase ‘Skychology’ for the ‘practice of intentionally looking up at the sky for a few minutes a day to improve your mental health’. Love it. I didn’t really need a name for it, but it is clever and apparently the science behind it proves my sky gazing instincts were worth acting upon. I’ll need to do more!

Those of you who have seen my few and far between posts on Instagram, FB or Bluesky, may have seen these pictures.

For a few years there, I wasn’t too keen on the arrival of Autumn. Not that I could do anything about it, perhaps I just wasn’t looking forward to the colder days.

This year, I am embracing it. How lucky to be able to watch the trees and plants change colour.

The thought of time spent inside as well, being cosy with the opportunity to carry on with (yet another) crochet blanket, fills me with joy. Bring it on!

Wishing you all a very Happy Autumn.

I am reading ‘All Adults Here’ by Emma Straub (although by the time I post this, I will guarantee I will have finished it. It’s compulsive reading!) I bought it in my brother and sister-in-law’s fabulous bookshop, Book Moon in Easthampton, MA.

I am watching ‘Oak Tree: Nature’s Greatest Survivor’ on BBC 4 with Gavin McGavin.

Flowers · Garden · Hope · Latin names · Nature · Photography · Reading · Seasons

Spring Flowers, Sunshine and a Love of Learning

March 18, 2025 sareenmclay

A quote I read recently by the late Stephen Hawking made me stop and think. Then it sent me on a spiral of thoughts.

I wondered if there is a word for a collector of quotes? So, off I headed, straight to you know where to look it up and yes, apparently I am a ‘quodophile’. There you go then, who knew. Another label to my box.

Perhaps not a box, perhaps I am, as we most probably all are, a whole index card system of labels. I can’t after all complain, as I love to learn the collective nouns for animals and birds, or the Latin names for Flowers, Plants and Trees or to discover the names of butterflies, damselflies, anything really. A name is a starting point for discovery.

I digress.

The quote from Stephen Hawking was about intelligence being the ability to adapt to change.

Change is difficult, it is exciting, it is opening a new file in your life.

As I thought about the quote, more and more, I decided I would add an extra part, for myself.

Intelligence is also the ability to create a routine thereby when changes come, you have the energy and the reserves to deal with it, knowing there is a safety net already in existence.

Spring is a time of change. The lighter days bring us hope and energy. We wait in anticipation for the first signs of flowers peeping through the dark earth like little bursts of sunshine.

Often when I am considering what to write for a blog post, coincidences occur. Such as the primroses popping up in our garden just as I have been delving into The Brief Life of Flowers by Fiona Stafford to you guessed it, learn more about flowers.

Now, here is a book for those who love to learn. One which is filled with so many information trails I have to stop and search for them. For a knowledge collector like me, a book like this is heaven.

There I was scurrying off to look up John Clare’s poem, ‘Primroses’, and John William Inchbold’s, ‘A Study in March’.

Then off I went down another rabbit hole to research women who were botanical painters.

The primroses in our garden have been returning year on year. Time and again I have split them. What began as two plants have given me many, many more. Now, all around the garden, there are bursts of small yellow flowers contrasting with the size of their large, floppy green leaves.

Is it with a gardener’s eye I look at them now? Noticing not only their beauty, but when they appear, which plants are flowering and which ones will need dividing. For of course, is that not the role of a gardener, to be constantly thinking to the future. There, another label for me, a gardener. Definitely a label I would pin to my lapel with pride.

Thoughts of the future have also drawn me to the past. It was after all, on a trip to our local garden centre with my parents that I bought the original primroses. There are many plants in our garden that were gifted to us by my parents; sedum (Hylotelephium), anemones, a tiny lilac tree. On occasion I will find myself talking to these plants, memories drifting back of my parents’ visits and although I know I have adapted as best I can for the moment, to the changes that have taken place in our lives, as I see their flowers emerge, the routine of the garden is of great comfort to me.

Being perhaps foolhardy, I have sown some seeds, teasel and sweet peas. Very early for here but, the sun is shining and there they were. Fingers crossed!

One final note:

A lovely friend sent me this article by Susie Dent. As a logophile, I love learning new words (okay, I know, I have already said, I love learning full stop) so this made my day to learn that I am a librocubicularist – I thought perhaps I was just lazy! Yet another label, and I am okay with that.

So, there we go, some random thoughts on learning and springtime. Wishing you all much joy as the spring flowers appear.

Do you have a favourite word or springtime flower?

I am reading: (so many books, you wouldn’t believe it – and yes there is a TBR pile on the bedside table!)

Wind Swept: Why Women Walk by Annabel Abbs

The Wonder by Diana Evans

The Book of Tree Poems, an anthology edited by Ana Sampson

In The Hedgerow by Nathalie Tordjman, illustrated by Sylvaine Perol

It would be lovely if you would like to pop over to www.mybookcorner.co.uk where you can read my reviews of books for children. There is the opportunity to sign up for the newsletter there as well, providing you with great recommendations sent straight to your inbox.

Birds · Holidays · Lighthouses · Nature · Photography · Resolutions · Seasons · walking · wildlife

Of Stonehaven, Sculptures, Stories, Snow, Squirrels, Surprises, Sunrises and …

January 24, 2025 sareenmclay

What a way to start the New Year.

New year, new me? Well, perhaps not, but my family and I certainly started 2025 with a new experience!

This was the year. We had talked about it so many times but now, here we were in Stonehaven, on Hogmanay, to watch the fireball swingers at midnight.

My jaw actually dropped as I watched the fifty swingers marching by. Each had a ball weighing between 3 and 5 kg. As they swung it up and around their heads, the flames licked the air sending sparks scattering. The crowd cheered, whistled and clapped. The swingers shouted ‘Happy New Year’ to hearty replies. Any thoughts of the cold, or why we had ventured out into a winter’s night disappeared as we were caught up in the display.

To the skirl of the pipes, the fireballs lit up the street and we could feel the warmth from them as they passed us by.

According to the Stonehaven Fireballs Association, the ‘idea behind the ceremony is to burn off the bad spirits left from the old years so that the spirits of the New Year can come in clean and fresh.’ In years gone by it was also a way to burn old fishing gear so perhaps it was an early way to get some spring cleaning in too!

In an amazing atmosphere, the finale was a superb firework display. Amidst a sea of upturned faces, bobbing pom pom hats, phones held aloft, I joined in with the oohs, aahs and cheers. I kept my phone firmly in my pocket; it’s not often I go to see a fireworks display, and I wanted to enjoy every minute.

Thank you to the Stonehaven Fireballs Association, the police, council, ambulance crews and all the many volunteers and others, without whom this event would not be possible.

Our New Year’s Day walk was a bit different. Along the Stonehaven seafront, we joined dog walkers, families and those clutching coffee cups against the newly arrived freezing temperatures. The slate grey sea hurtled towards us, waves crashing in before thundering off as they receded through the piles of pebbles on the beach. We stopped to watch three majestic shags, or were they cormorants I always have to check, dipping into the icy sea.

Author in front of a lighthouse sculpture. Two sculptures, one a boat and the other a metal love heart with thistles inside and two fish on the top.

And, yet another highlight, I saw my first lighthouse of the year. The sculptures along the bay have been placed there by Stonehaven’s mystery sculptor.

We returned home just in time, as snowflakes began to fall and for nearly a fortnight we lived in a snow covered world.

So it was perfect timing to discover I had a story, ‘Helping Hyacinths’, published in The People’s Friend special winter, cosy fiction magazine!

To the songs of robins, bluetits and blackbirds, I watched as our garden was filled with visitors. A lovely surprise was the woodpecker who became braver each day, hanging onto the fatballs for a good feed. Wood pigeons, chaffinches, great tits, blackbirds, magpies all popped in and, our day would not be complete without the three crows, not sitting on the walll, but strutting across the snow like mini sergeant majors. New to our garden, as far as I know, a volery of long-tailed tits descended, darted around the garden as if it was their playground and tucked into the food.

A thrush had a great feed on the holly berries, glad I hadn’t brought them inside for a Christmas display!

The chattering of the bluetits near the nest box alerted me to their presence there and I saw one disappearing inside so, fingers crossed!

A bluetit chick needs one hundred insects a day. So ten chicks will need one thousand per day and it takes them thirty days to fledge. That will mean thirty thousand insects. Hopefully our log piles and bug hotels will help!

Keeping the bird feeders filled, I also put out squirrel food as there is a resident couple of reds who live nearby and we had, on occasion, seen them darting along the fences. So to see this wee visitor was a real treat and he or she, seemed very happy feasting in the relative safety of the bird table. as I watched, the squirrel waved it’s tail at times, investigating further I discovered this is to warn off others from their patch.

Once or twice I saw a crow move towards the squirrel threateningly but, once the squirrel built their confidence up, they didn’t seem to hesitate in retaliating.

Today is the start of the yearly RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. I have my binoculars ready!

So, onwards into 2025. I am still to set my goals, perhaps it is more, SMART targets (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) I need to think of. Whatever they are, I have had a look back through some of my previous posts and this one ‘Balancing Life‘ and the five ways to better wellbeing, always resonates with me.

Listening as the Pink-footed geese fly by and watching a stunning sunrise to start the year.

Happy New Year, wishing you all a very happy and healthy 2025.

… Space!

I have just finished reading: Orbital by Samantha Harvey

I loved watching The New Year’s Day Concert From Vienna, available on BBC iPlayer – with a space themed film by Barbara Weissenbeck during the interval, it fitted in well with my reading.

bees · Books · butterflies · Flowers · Garden · Happy · Holidays · Inspiration · Latin names · Nature · Photography · Seasons · wildlife · Writing

Gardens, Photography, Reading, Writing and Learning- of course!

October 29, 2024October 29, 2024 sareenmclayLeave a comment

I began this post in the summer. For some reason, I couldn’t get my head around what the thread of it was until I realised, that was the point. This is about meandering.

In gardens that have been specially designed, the aim seems to be to have a winding path. One to deliberately make you slow down and take your time. Along the way, there will be side shoots, leading you to ‘moments of interest’ in the garden. At the end of the path there may be an area that was at first hidden from sight.

I confess to not knowing much about garden design, despite the many I have visited! One designer I have read and heard mention of over the years is Gertrude Jekyll. On a visit to the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) on the North East Coast of England, I was delighted to learn there was a garden she had designed. Oh, how beautiful it is too! Filled with an abundance of summer blooms in a riot of colour, it was an absolute treat to see. Fragrant sweet peas and roses, poppies, daisies and flowering Lamb’s Ears (Stachys Byzantina)amidst others.

Garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll at Lindesfarne (Holy Island).

A long time ago I planted Lamb’s Ears in my garden after admiring them in the walled garden at Drum Castle: the leaves are so soft to touch. So it is with gardens, each one I visit inspires me to do something more with my own. Returning home with renewed determination to try sweet peas again, I think of how amazing their perfume is and how they are so pretty in a posy.

I am a meandering sort of a person, I think. The years have taught me that I do get there, slowly, following paths I choose, often without a clear idea of how it will all turn out but willing to give it a try. Perhaps my way is like the butterflies and moths I enjoy spotting, flitting from one stem to the next but with an overall sense of purpose.

Often I am inspired by others who have followed their own paths. Watching the documentary on the writer Joan Didion, reading about the photographer Imogen Cunningham and Kate Bradbury’s ‘The Bumblebee Flies Anyway’ have set the tone for my summer.

Always one to enjoy a learning opportunity, the talk by Annie Ives on identifying bumble bees for the Scottish Wildlife Trust was right up my street.

Writing this blog has given me the perfect opportunity to use some of the photos of the natural world around us that I love to take. This love of photography combined with writing meant I very much enjoyed running a ‘Scrawl and Crawl’ workshop with SCBWI‘s Karen McDonald at the wonderful Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery. I am hoping the exercises we did will get me writing!

As ever, the garden provides me with so many opportunities to take photos, it is hard to resist! Here are a selection of September moments. Sunshine, spiders and sunflowers, a white-tailed bee on the Sedum (Hylotelephium) and stunning white anemones.

To see the wild flowers amongst the apples this summer was a delight.

I wondered whether to post this or not, time has run away with me but today, as I swept up piles of leaves to let the grass breathe I thought, why not. Perhaps this is a summer/autumn round up.

Leaving the leaves (!) on the flower beds with the aim that they will break down as a natural mulch, I gathered a couple of bags full to hopefully create leaf mould. Making sure there were holes in the bags, I poured in some water from the rainwater butt and am keeping my fingers crossed.

Outside, in the October sunshine, I heard the honks, quacks and barks of pink-footed geese flying in a ‘v’ formation overhead. As I swept the leaves, a beautiful light green frog moved to hide in between the cracks in the wall. So that was the end of my clearing up. I left the rest for the frogs.

The Fuchsia are still going strong but are there any ‘froggy friends’ lurking underneath the beech leaves?

I am reading:

‘Haddo Reimagined‘ by Rae Cowie and Susan Orr this is a wonderful collaboration between writer and photographer.

Do you have a book recommendation which would be perfect for this time of year?

Flowers · Garden · Happy · Nature · Photography · Writing

Simply Not Perfect

October 15, 2018 sareenmclay6 Comments

Life isn’t perfect.

When I started writing this blog I was very aware I didn’t want it to be a relentless round of cheery posts with no indication of the reality of life.

On the way I’ve found it to be so much harder to write a blog post about sadness. I don’t want to be the person spreading sadness and yet there are always things that upset, worry and make me sad.

No one has fabulous days every day.

It’s the tough days that make me appreciate the good ones all the more

So if I post a photo of my garden, I’ll usually take it on a bright, sunny day. Sometimes I’ll have to wait for quite a few days for the sun to appear and when it does I’m out there, really appreciating the light.

For every flower, fruit, vegetable and so on I’ve been proud of, there have been the plants I’ve put in the wrong position, or not fed correctly, or something (who knows what!) and they’ve not survived.

However, every seed, every bulb, every plant has been planted with optimism – I’m going for the cup is half full!

I guess there’s ups and downs in nature and in life but I’m going to keep on plugging away.

Flowers · Photography · Trees

I’m just saying …

May 6, 2018 sareenmclay4 Comments

Introducing my Magnolia Stellata.

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Now, here’s the reality. thumb_IMG_8974_1024

Okay, so there’s only one flower so far this year! I planted this tree in September 2015. We lived in Holland for a while and I loved the Magnolia trees there so much I had to plant one when I started working on my new garden.

Taking a photo of this one flower and putting it up on this blog brought me to thinking about the saying, ‘Never judge a book by its cover.’

In fact I love sayings, especially ones like ‘What’s for you won’t pass you by’ and ‘Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.’

There’s something about the sheer common sense of them. There’s a comfort in knowing they’ve been passed down the years, a thread, a link with our past that we can give to the future.

Do you remember the people who said them to you?

These sayings are timeless, just like flowers. Little gifts to share and pass on to our future generations.

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… Space!

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