by Kathy | May 29, 2020 | Blog
Writing a novel is like being in lockdown; it feels as if it will never end and then suddenly it’s all picnics and barbecues. After months of struggle redrafting the final section, of long mornings feeling ‘I can’t write another word’, the text of ‘A New Heaven and...
by Kathy | Mar 24, 2020 | Blog
St Cuthbert is, of course, the patron saint of self-isolators. He spent eight years on Inner Farne, a small island off the coast of Northumberland and provides a great example for those new to the practice. Despite his isolation, he became famous for his saintliness...
by Kathy | Feb 8, 2020 | Blog
This beautiful piece of worked glass, unearthed during Dig Venture’s excavation this summer on Lindisfarne, has been revealed to be a rare archaeological treasure. It is tiny, the size of a sweet, and could easily have been discarded as a pebble. But...
by Kathy | Jan 28, 2020 | Blog
Lindisfarne, 22nd December 2019. It is gone eight o’clock in the morning on this least-light day of late December, the winter solstice. I am standing on the whinstone ridge above Holy Island harbour, waiting for the sunrise. The Heugh, as the ridge is known, is at the...
by Kathy | Dec 31, 2019 | Blog
It is mid-December, and when I leave home in the early morning there is not a hint of light in the sky. It is black and raw and cold. In the summer I would bike it but today I bundle up in a thick coat and get in the car, run the heater to defrost the windows and...
by Kathy | Nov 5, 2019 | Blog
Lindisfarne, or Holy Island as most locals call it, features in all three novels of my Cuthbert trilogy. I’m writing the third novel at present, which is set in the period immediately after the Norman conquest. By this time, of course, the Cuthbert Community were...
