New Year 2010

A very quiet day in Aberdeen, the first of a new decade. Outside, the snow which began falling almost two weeks ago, still lies. Every day, it thaws and drips but by nightfall, it has frozen again. The pavements are like glass and the orthopaedic department of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary must be crammed with the brave unfortunate who, on venturing out, have glissaded on the ice. Inside, the stove is stoked with wood and I'm watching Zik who has his beak crammed full with something, looking for a suitable cache site. Chicken is standing on the strut of the chair next to me, watching Zik. She's quite happy as long as he stays within what she regards as his own territory, which, on the whole he does. Chicken is well and in her best winter plumage. Zik becomes a calmer bird in slow stages, and a busier one too-the endeavours of bathing, caching and playing with the numerous toys he has gathered around him, take up a great deal of time. By now, he has reduced the coir doormat to a thin and shredded version of its former self and daily, I sweep up the tufts he has carefully tweaked from the threadbare base. Zik is a large bird now although I still-soppily-refer to him as a little crow.

It's ages since I updated this which I regret-there never seems to be a still and fixed point at which it feels like the moment to do it. It has been a busy year-I've travelled to London, Pitlochry, Keswick, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and Durham to take part in book festivals and other events. They've all been wonderful and I've been thrilled to talk to so many people who have enjoyed 'Corvus' and who feel as I do about corvids. I've had a lot of fascinating letters—many recalling rescued corvids from childhood-detailed, beautifully remembered and expressed chronicles of unforgotten relationships. I'm so grateful too to everyone who has posted comments on this blog—it's an entirely unanticipated joy, that of knowing that something I wrote should have been so well and warmly received. 'Corvus' has had excellent reviews in America and was recently praised in the magnificently eccentric 'Corvi Chronicle'-the journal of the American Society of Crows and Ravens-a great honour indeed. The paperback of the American edition will be published in April and we're just discussing cover pictures.

(Now, I'm watching Zik who has been bathing in his drinking bowl for which he's far too big. He has a large baking dish full of water too but for the quick bath, the drinking bowl is preferred. He has to squeeze himself in so that there isn't much room for flapping. The post-bath cleaning is beginning-it will all take some considerable time...)

I'm beginning to plan the next book-there's so much I want to write about that it's difficult to thin out the ideas and shape them into some kind of manageable form-but I will.

A very happy New Year!