Tops of trees are stark ink sketches,
their lower trunks cocooned in soft mist.

Greylag geese search for a place to roost
in the reeds, loudly beating the air
with black dipped wings.

Night waits for no one and drinks away the light.
Iced puddles we stamped on are freezing over again.
Its dropped four degrees since we left the car
at the lane over on the other side of the lake.

There’s tea in a flask, but we leave it there.
not wanting to take our eyes off the shifting skies.

I watch a dilapidated barn, great, messy gouges in the roof.
It’s the sort of place you would go, only if a friend dared you to.

Like the spark from a flint,
the first star flickers into view, then the second.

We turn our bodies slowly, scanning for signs
then, the broad silhouette of a short eared owl
moving faster than I thought it would have been,
mighty moth wings silently navigating the night air.

This book has many high points, but quite a few low ones too. It got off to a good start, but began to sag in the middle then picked up again towards the end. Another Bullshit Night In Suckcity is a memoir that tells the story of how Flynn and his father – a self-proclaimed poet and novelist, who claims to have written a ground breaking novel – met. Flynn was 27 when he first met the mystery father who had sent him letters throughout his teenage life. It was the 1980’s, and Flynn worked in a homeless shelter in Boston, the shelter where his alcoholic father eventually ended up.
The book reveals some harsh truths about homelessness and broken relationships that were only ever vaguely there in the first place, with descriptions that make you turn the page over at the top corner.
Sometimes I’d see my father, walking past my building on his way to another nowhere. I could have given him a key, offered a piece of my floor. But if I let him inside the line between us would blur. my own slow-motion car wreak would speed up.
My father wraps himself in newspaper some nights, stuffs his coat with newspaper, the headlines finally about him, though he isn’t named.
On wet nights he wraps himself in plastic, a Hefty trashbag sealed with duct tape, he weaves himself into a cocoon, lies on the ground, puts his feet into the bag and pushes until they reach the bottom.
There are moments when the descriptions are rich with horror.
Some have scars from the corners of their mouths to their ears, which means they squealed. Many fingers are gone or half gone, to heavy machinery or knife fights. Some earlobes have been nibbled off by rats. One guy was set on fire – now the burn scars rise up his neck like flames. A few of the guys have hernias – their stomachs have fallen into their testicles, which now hang enormously between their legs.
Throughout the book, Flynn experiments with various narrative styles, including stream of consciousness, one acts plays, and interviews. This books is a stark examination of homelessness, hard truths and the relationship between a father and son which is warped out of any familiar recognition.

Staying with the Northern theme, this book is complied of work by Norwegian writers who all have a connection with the Stavanger. (The book is an anthology celebrating Stavanger winning Capital of Culture 2008). I was really thrilled with the variety of this collection. They get the balance of poetry and prose just right. The subject matter varies massively, which is always a great thing. In a story by Johan Harstad there is a man who is making a list of things to do whilst waiting to hear if his father has died ‘I sit at the kitchen table and make a list of all the things that need doing in the near future, the coming days. I see the list gradually expand, of its own accord, extending, turning into a plan for the entire year, for years to come, every single day, eternity, till the day I die. There’ll always be something that needs doing. There’s no time to lose. And the house needs decorating. The story has a striking ending, one which almost reaches out of the pages and punches you in the stomach, waking you up. I still haven’t taken the advice the story threw at me. Well, not really. But I am trying. Maybe not hard enough.

There is an extract of a 36 page poem, written by Oyvind Rimbereid, which presents a new language to reveal the future consequences of our failure to change the current Western lifestyle. The speaker lives on the West Coast of Norway in the year 2480. The original language of the poem is a hybrid of West Norwegian dialect, earlier forms of Norwegian and elements of most of the languages to be found round the North Sea today. Here is part of the long first part.

WOT wud i turned owt lyk

if u kuddev kept fra

yor wereld te ours?

SHAYMFEL, i ges wen

u kum wiv yor imagos

ev our taim, tekno, airlyf

all yor epokaliptikl nich-mares.

I haven’t read a lot of work by Norwegian writers, (I tried Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder but was extremely disappointed and bored) so this book was a great introduction to a variety of Norway’s finest.

I didn’t take medication for many years because I was scared of it. I was scared of the calories. I was scared that it would change me. I was scared of all sorts of things. I also thought that I could heal naturally. So when I finally started taking it a couple of years back (when I was very ill and suicidal) and got used to it, I felt as if I had my life back on track. I felt as if I had a safety net. Naturally, the net can’t catch everything. I have very bad times, I have good times. But I know that I will have this depression with me for the rest of my life. It is a part of me. I can’t just shrug it off. In my case, its hereditary. So if I have to take medication for the rest of my life, I’m perfectly fine with that. If I was too come off it, even if I felt that I was in a safe place in my head and elsewhere, I don’t think that safety would last long. I know my body and mind better than the Doctors. I know what it needs and when it needs a little bit of help. I’m aware that the Doctor is probably being pressurised by the twating Government to try and get most of her patients off prescription drugs, but I tell you this now, they’re not going to be taking away something that helps to fix me when I break.

I pull and push at our clothes,
hot with water and soap.
Swishing them around in the pot
we use to make pasta in.

There are midges drowning in the steam,
just a bit up from me,
where we fill our bottles before work.

I’ve seen mating couples,
sloshed towards the lake
still attached to one another.

I save some. The ones I can reach,
let them latch onto my fingers.
I put them on branches,
blades of grass. They fly again,
come back to bite me.

But I do it over and over,
while the dirt from our clothes
changes the colour of the water,
and dirties the bubbles.

Polar Exploration fascinates me. I intend to get myself to the Arctic one of these days, but until then, I’ll need to satisfy my obsession with stories. I found this book in a Free Book place, you know, one of them stores where they give away books (3 maximum, mind) that are otherwise going to be pulped. It was in-between crumbling Mills and Boons and stained, thin SF novels with shit plots and dire characters. And I tell you what, I am glad that I rummaged for it because it proved to be a belter.
Much of the book is about Scott and his long, doomed march to the South Pole, and that’s what peaked my interest the most, as you’ll see soon. But there are samples from Ernest Shacklton too, and Richard Byrd, who writes about a near-breakdown due to the stress of spending a winter along at the South Pole. You live and learn.

We cannot even begin to image what the majority of the men in this book went through. If any of us, in this day and age, go out into the frozen lands, we should not be allowed to complain about the cold or isolation, the stress and the struggle. The equipment we can get our hands on, and the medical, psychological and technological advances that have been made over the past 100 years ensure that we are equipped with the best resources, help and guidance possible. We need to remember this and make the most of everything that we have at our disposal. We should never take it for granted.
Most of the time when I was reading this, my toes were curling and my forehead was creased to hell. Often I had to pause and put the book down for a few moments. There is a photo of Titus Oates, the most intriguing member of Scott’s team, and I was utterly captivated by it. I must have thumbed back to it at least a hundred times or so. The look in his eyes, of something going on where we can’t see it. The photo is timeless. It could have been taken yesterday. I soon discovered that I’m not the only one with an infatuation for this extraordinary man. Geraldine McCaughrean explored one girls adoration for Oates in her novel The White Darkness.

Scott’s Journals were difficult to read, primarily because I felt so damn sorry for the poor buggers. Here Scott describes Oates’s last few hours. ‘He did not – would not – give up hope till the very end. He slept through the night before last, hoping not to wake; but he work in the morning – yesterday. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, ‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’ He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since.’ Francis Spufford, an author who wants us all to know about the men on Scott’s team wrote a heartbreaking account of Scott’s final hours, as he lay in his tent, the final members of his team both dead. ‘Oates is a white hummock now somewhere a little to the side of the line of march. And Wilson and Bowerslie one each side of Scott in the tent, their sleeping bags pulled over their faces. How many hours ago he does not know, the breathing first of one and then of the other turned briefly ragged and then stopped. The breath sighed out and never drew again. Except for the silence they might be sleeping.’

Heart stopping, isn’t it. Well, this is what you get throughout the book. Try and get your hands on it. If you have a good knowledge of Polar Exploration already, it doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure that you’ll get something new from this anthology. And for those of you who are new to the subject, well, you are going to be transported to a new world entirely.

You remember the exact branch,

where four red squirrels

sat, fat, gorged on holly berries,

too stuffed to move,

just inches from your head.

That winter when you didn’t have

your instant camera.

We watch a roe deer for five minutes,

in a clearing in the forest beyond the wall.

It watches us,  its white behind so bright,

as if it sat on the only snow that settled.

We pass binoculars back and forth .

Sitting on cold stones, by the cold lake,

we eat thick, peanut butter sandwiches,

fat pieces of Christmas cake.

The red flash of a dead deer

so close to the path.

Eyes neatly pecked out,

bits of white fat still attached

to complete ribs, unbroken spine.

Nose intact, fury hind legs,

spread as if it had tried to run

after death had beaten  it down.

Morbid curiosity get the better of us.

We creep around, not speaking.

I expect it to wake. Shake its hollow ribcage,

sprint for the trees. It’s so still.

The flies have yet to arrive.

The ominous figure on the front of the novel is a monster who shows up after midnight. But this isn’t the monster that Conner was expecting to meet, the monster in his nightmares. The monster that started coming after his mum stared her treatments for cancer. This monster, in the shape of a yew tree, is different. This monster hunting for a truth that Conner is unwilling to expose. This novel is not gothic and sinister, as the front cover would lead you to believe. It is touching, sad and real. The original idea for the book came from Siobhan Dowd, who unfortunately died of cancer before she had a chance to write the book. Having that in mind when you are reading hauls up all sorts of emotions. Be prepared for an heart-rending journey, one that will stay with you.

Making the most wonderful friends in Iceland. You know who you are and you changed my life in many little ways. I love you people, including:

Hebrew Smurf – Sorry for all the shit I gave you in Thorsmork, my love. You are one of the most amazing people I have ever met and I feel privileged to know you.

Smelly – Sorry for having a go at you for eating whale meat. You are one of the nicest, funniest blokes I’ve ever met.

Ogress – Sorry for being OTT when my camera battery charger was nicked. You are an incredible person and I bloody love you.

Jorge – Thank you for letting us crash!

Dora The Explorer – You are a really quite unique and special.

Completing the  Laugavegur hike. Laugavegur is a street in Reykjavik. But it’s also a hiking route. A very famous, difficult 34 mile hiking route though the remarkable Icelandic highlands. Its starts at Landmannalaugar and finishes in Þórsmörk. (Thor’s Wood.) I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it. I felt lacking in confidence and physical ability. But at more or less the last minute I changed my mind and believe you me, I am pretty damn pleased that I did. It was hard, yeah, and it rained for most of the three days, and we had to cross glacial rivers in each other’s sandals but it was a challenge that didn’t get the best of me. I had a blip during the walk. I fell into anorexic behaviours extremely quickly and ran out of energy. I was besides myself with grief and anger and hunger. But Moran, the Israeli Godess (also a Psychologist) pulled me back from the brink. Every other member of the team played their role too, and cheered me up and out of my ‘bad place’. The landscapes we experienced were sometimes too much. I mean, it’s impossible to capture the full intensity on film or in a photo. It just made me want to cry. I mean really cry. I was so fucking lucky. The highlands with their changing brilliant colours shifted into barren, grey peaks where it is so easy to get lost. Steam wooshed out of the earth, often so loudly I thought, honestly, that there was a motorway nearby. It was almost impossible to believe that that sound was coming from the earth. We hiked across ash covered snow, past snow caves and cliffs, tall and menacing like the walls of a cathedral. On our second hiking day we hiked through desert like plains, ash in huge piles as if a giant had been sweeping his floor. The rain was heavy and hard. It was almost as if it was being dragged down from the sky. The wind was like a bully, waiting for when you were at your most vulnerable before lashing out at you and trying to rip away your meagre bag cover. A helicopter passed over our heads as we were nearing our second stop off. It was obvious someone had been injured out there in the beautiful barren place. It could have so easily been one of us. When we arrived at our final destination, it took a while for it to sink in. I still think back now and say to myself  ‘gal, you did good.’

Finding the perfect Icelandic jumper in a charity shop in Reykjavik, Iceland. The first night in the capital of Iceland I knew that I was not going to leave without buying a jumper. I was committed to find the perfect one and was willing to pay through the nose for it if I had to. Now, Icelandic jumpers are perhaps one of the most incredible clothing garments ever created, and believe you me, you are never content with just one. I wanted to buy one for Tom I wanted to buy one for the kids we are going to have in the future. I wanted to buy one for my Dad, Mum, brothers, sister… They are gorgeous garments and so bloody practical. I found one, after seven weeks of searching, in a Reykjavik Red Cross Shop. I was in love. It was a tiny price in comparison to the ones selling in the more touristy shops. A snip at 7,000 Kroner. All the other were 16,000 and above. The first time I put it on, I felt as if I was glowing. Not just because it was so warm but because I felt so happy in it. It was like a massive comfort blanket and made me feel more in-tune with Iceland on a totally different level. An Icelandic person had owned this jumper before me, and had more than likely, knitted it themselves. I was wearing a little piece of Icelandic history and that fact, to this day continues to make me ecstatic.