fleabite531

Tisha B’Av Edinburgh vigil for Palestinians Sunday 3rd August. 2-3pmDuke of Wellington Equestrian statue.9 Waterloo Pl, Edinburgh EH1 3BGWe, a group of Jews in Scotland, are bearing public witness, on Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, to the ongoing atrocities afflicted on Palestinians.Genocide proceeds in Gaza, with the Israeli blockade of food, medicine and other essentials…

The on/off refers to a gimmick i tried where i wore a high vis cycling vest to signify the parts that were from 2003, vs the more contemporary parts. ONRafah, 16th March 2003.The world, my world, narrowed to a single point. The war, the wars, that had filled my thoughts raged on around. The Iraq war buildup. The brutality of the occupation of Palestine that for the past two months had crowded…

2 nights in gorgeous an cladach bothy. Fires both nights. And on a walk over to see the lighthouse saw a sea eagle. Thought the day had peaked, and then 5 minutes later sea eagle returned, again directly overhead, but this time a peregrine falcon, presumably nesting nearby, attacked it and we had incredible aerial gymnastics from them both! Sea eagle at least 4 times the size, spun in the air…

Islay – arrival

Unprecedented for a “two go on an adventure” trip, it is not sunny. Soon after the ferry left kennacraig the rain started, and now an hour after landing in port askaig, its still coming down. The weather definitely made our planned long trek to an claddach this evening much less appealing, more so when we clocked a cosy bar/hotel at the harbour. I was feeling shy but, buoyed by our previous…

Healing from PTSD, emotional numbing and disassociation. Newly experiencing grief, Day 5.

As my PTSD and disassociation subsides, I am rediscovering feelings and emotions. I lost a dear friend, a sweet sister, to suicide at the weekend. This is my first bereavement in years, and the first I have actually gone through any proper grieving for. For the dear dear friends who died before, my numbing just deepened and I struggled to cry at all.

So I feel like someone plunged into the ocean,…

Breakfast of muesli with boiling water (a kind of porridge which I really like when camping) and tea. Then broke camp, went back to local shop for cheese and a couple of tomatoes, and headed out on road towards callanish.

Almost immediately we came across something that looked interesting on side of road, which turned out to be a rebuilt shielding. Inside was set out as it would have been, with…

Beautiful spot to waken and breakfast, on the tip of the little peninsula.

Next stop tarbert. Pretty port village. Stopped at only place we could see and struck gold. The bar at the hotel at the port has amazing food and pot of tea for 2 was £3! My burger was freshly made in house. Very very yummy. And we charged phones and hand washed a day of clothes each too.

The local shop didn’t have…

Stornoway, barvas, butt (teehee) of Lewis – Western Isles day 2

Slept really well – wild camped on the shore, close to lewis castle. Slept with my flysheet open, looking out over the bay.

Museum – medium sized, lovely open, modern glassy extension onto the castle. Nicely laid out and cool to see all information *initially* in Gaelic. (Have heard more Gaelic casually spoken in past 2 days than in whole rest of time in Scotland!) Fascinating museum attendant…

Off on installment 3 of “Two go Island Hopping” with E, my semi regular partner in crime. Been wanting to get to Outer Hebrides for years, and finally yesterday I saddled up my noble steed for 12 day trip. Deliciously familiar to have camping gear, food for 4 days (we’ll restock as we go) and feel that sense of self sufficiency, independence, and awaiting to find what adventures are around the…

i would have to think hard to count how many of my friends either do now, or have done, at some point done sex work. and almost all of them are nervous about letting people know because of how judgemental folks attitudes towards their mode of surviving capitalism, sexism, cissexism[0], racism and other intersectional[1] oppressions are. there’s so much shame around it 😦 so much whorephobia.…

This has been a year of reassessment of projects and priorities, personal development, and reshaping of what I put time and energy into. Much of this is ongoing, rather than neatly concluded in time for a new year’s retrospective. But I feel at peace with where I am right now and that I am midway through a lot of current personal projects and reassessments, and that’s ok.

In May/June I had an…

On not being closeted, the privilege to be out and open, and the resultant deweaponisation of “shame”

In multiple aspects of my like I’m privileged that I don’t have to be closeted. That’s partly a conscious choice; years ago a concerned lover tried to get me to edit down my social networking profile in case those I was involved in campaigns against (city council, rightwing popular media etc) tried to publicly smear me for being polyamorous, queer and kinky. I decided that if this did happen, I…

i wrote this quickly as a comment to a post re climate change. i’ve been thinking about this for a few months, and have had a few chats with people about it, but i’m still working things through. it seems almost blasphemous amongst activist circles, and probably mainstream, to talk about grief re climate change. like that is just accepting the status quo rather than acting to avert it.   but…

For the men re #metoo – learn about, discuss, and model good consent

Seen lots of posts from men saying yes they want to be good allies to women and trans people re #metoo but don’t know what to do. Maybe something men could do is to learn about, discuss and model good consent?

For the past few years I’ve made a habit of making the first move – I realised that if I didn’t the only lovers I would have, out of the total pool of “we find each other mutually…

Northumbria trip – Cove, Lindisfarne, Alnwick, Hadrian’s Wall and Flodden

Wood stove with thoughtful lighting box full of tinder.

A sweetie and I both really needed a break so we came to Northumbria for a few days. I’ve wanted to go to Lindisfarne for years, so we’re staying in a super cute converted old caravan a few fields back from the North Sea overlooking Lindisfarne. The hut is tiny, but just to make me happy has a wood burning stove, and is so well thought…