#Aurora #Kingussie #Scotland

🫖Tea and Grit: A Bicycle Journey along the Silk Road🫖 by Helen Watson is launched today! Available from all bookstores. Tea and Grit is about why it is more important than ever before to drink tea with the people we fear as strangers. #booklaunch #cycling #travel #poetry #refugeeswelcome

Thank you to @helenwatsonwriter.bsky.social for arranging a copy of her new travel book, Tea and Grit, to be sent to me

Love travel? Love adventure? Intrigued by cultures that are unfamiliar? Looking for Christmas gift ideas? I thoroughly recommend this book by @helenwatsonwriter.bsky.social

Did a round of Edinburgh's fantastic independent bookshops at the weekend with advanced info for Tea and Grit: A Bicycle Journey along the Silk Road. Here @typewronger.bsky.social ❤️ #travelwriting #silkroad #syria #iran #centralasia #cycletouring #poetry #refugeeissues #whatwebringhome 🚲🫖🐪🌴🚲

'Tea and Grit: A Bicycle Journey along the Silk Road' is coming soon! #Syria #Türkiye #Iran #CentralAsia #Uzbekistan #Tajikistan #SilkRoad #CycleTouring #TravelWriting #Poetry Please 🚴 this way to find out more and sign-up to alerts: www.helenwatsonwriting.com/home

A great joy last night to present Elif Safak with the @stanfordstravel.bsky.social Prize for the Best Fiction Book with a Sense of Place - for her wonderful There Are Rivers In The Sky. A great night supported by @vikingcruises.bsky.social

It is with great sadness to hear that the great Tim Radford has died. He was, unequivocally, the best science journalist, and a kind and generous man. I used his Manifesto for the Simple Scribe in lectures for student this very week. It’s faultless. www.theguardian.com/science/blog...

If only there were a book, I hear you say, about the reality of the special relationship and the folly of relying on the Americans as allies.

The best short piece I've read on Trump's new Predator America- Brilliant and crucially important @FT editorial America has turned on its friends - on.ft.com/3ERSO6o via @FT

Highly recommend this lovely book about learning to embrace winter.

After years of censorship, once-banned books are now resurfacing in Damascus, marking a new chapter of freedom in a city that was once controlled by fear 👇

This Is Just To Say I have eaten the books that were in the library and which you were probably saving for dessert Forgive me they were nutritious so ink and so paper

We are alarmed and shocked by the arrest and detainment of our author and colleague Mahmoud Muna, along with his nephew Ahmad Muna, owners and booksellers of Jerusalem’s Educational Bookshop. Please share our statement below widely.

🚨 LIVESTREAM 🚨 The Future of Syria 🇸🇾 Rory & Alastair are joined by Syria expert, David McCloskey, to dissect their recent interview with the new President of Syria, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and what it all means for the future of the Middle East. 🗓️ Friday 14th February ⏰ 3pm UK time Link below 👇

Always love to pop into the #UrsaMinorBakehouse for great coffee and cake and to say hi to this wonderful piece of art by Julian Friers julianfriers.com when in #Ballycastle #Pangolin

Our Book of the Week is the Penguin Book of Pirates, edited by Katherine Howe - a fantastic compilation of primary sources from the golden age of high-seas banditry. Order your copy here: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/the-pe...

There were never strawberries like the ones we had that sultry afternoon sitting on the step of the open french window… —Edwin Morgan, “Strawberries”🍓 published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020 #ValentinesDay #poetry #LGBTQ #LGBTQplusHM25 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

When you go, if you go, and I should want to die, there’s nothing I’d be saved by more than the time you fell asleep in my arms… —Edwin Morgan, “When You Go” 🫂 in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020 #ValentinesDay #poetry #LGBTQ #LGBTQplusHM25 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️❤️ www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

Congratulations to the winner of the 2024 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize, for translations into English of full-length Arabic language works. Katharine Halls for Rotten Evidence by Ahmed Naji (McSweeney’s) #TranslationPrizes

Huge response to interview with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Over 500k views Arabic version. For subtitles 1.Turn on 'Subtitles/closed captions (c)' 2. Go to the settings cog 3. Select 'Subtitles/CC' 4. Select 'Auto Translate' 5. Choose your language from the options. youtu.be/edBAP-ihMR4

Hi from Damascus. Fascinating interview for podcast with fighter turned president of Syria Ahmed al-Sharaa. We discuss on @therestpolitics.bsky.social tomorrow and full interview on LEADING on Monday. A few fabulous trees thrown in. Pic 2 Tree of the Day. 100 years old according to the man at base

Working away in arid lands again this week. I am always struck by how green the #desert is where it is touched by #water. #travelwriting helenwatsontravelwriting.blogspot.com/2012/05/true...

Been thinking about this one recently for some reason #Brecht #TheGodofWar written about a certain WW2 dictator.

Coming back home over #Drumochter on the Scotrail from #Edinburgh yesterday reminded me of this, written some time ago... #Inverness ohyes 💙 helenwatsontravelwriting.blogspot.com/2025/01/inve... #Highlands #Scotland #longdistanceromance

I still can't quite believe that Assad is no longer in #Syria. My experience of surveillance when cycling to #Palmyra #Tadmor in 2010... before the war. P.S. The full story is in my book (publisher wanted). #cycletouring #silkroad #travelwriting helenwatsontravelwriting.blogspot.com/2017/03/dese...

helenwatsontravelwriting.blogspot.com/2024/11/tagh... The #Scottish #Highlands have turned to slush today- wishing I was winter surfing in #Morocco again! #poetry #travelwriting