SCCR Conference

We’ve listened enviously to reports of glorious weather down south. Here we haven’t been able to see the bottom of our garden for the last six days. The whole valley is shrouded in a low mist that descends even more thickly at night. A delivery driver to the farm told me it’s the same all the way to Hawick. Little Owl calls this sort of weather “mystery weather” and she’s right. It can’t be much fun trying to lamb up on the hills in it.

Yesterday I attended the launch conference of the Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution (SCCR). Many of you will know that I have been volunteering with them this year as an illustrator. The conference was peppered with items I’d designed or had illustrated for. The photo here shows the conference folder I designed. I was so proud! I feel very privileged to have been involved in the work of the Centre and the conference brought this home to me again. One of the keynote speakers was Karyn McCluskey. You can read about her work with Glasgow gangs and the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit here. Her speech was incredibly moving. I met so many interesting people throughout the day from those teaching primary school children mediation skills to use with their peers in the playground through to those working with teenage mums. There is so much good work quietly going on and it’s wonderful to see it making the national agenda.