In The Secrets of Blythswood Square I curated a secret collection of erotic art. Set in Glasgow, 1846, I wanted to find real pieces to include. This took me down some rabbit hole. Hi. Welcome to the weekend. Here's what I found (stop reading now if you don't like shockers, OK?) 1 A 19th century spring loaded erotic carved wood novelty box. WHAT? This one sold in 2008 at Christie's for £625. (Open the lid, and the penis jumps out - I jest you not) 🫣 /2

This week the UK Minoritised Languages Enquiry was underway. In the Scots section hardly any women were mentioned. Let's level that up with a 🧵 Lassies of the Leid, shall we? 1st, poet Violet Jacob "There's muckle lyin yont the Tay, that's mair tae me nor life" Glorious. /1

Next another poet, Helen Cruickshank. Her home in Corstorphine was a gathering place for the Scottish Renaissance ie Hugh MacDairmid et al. Also a suffragette. She was major. Not a word about her achievements, contribution or talents was spoken in English or Scots .... /2

Today🧵of Scottish heiresses cos there's 1 in Secrets of Blythswood Sq. 1st: Marion Burrell who DIDN'T inherit: her parents left their treasures instead to Glasgow ie the Burrell Collection. Marion was treated appallingly. Her mother was an heiress in her own right too. Wild /1 Thwarted heir Elizabeth Sempill announced in Aberdeen's local paper in 1952 that he wished to be known as Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill & went on to marry his housekeeper. The story appeared in Tatler: … somewhat focussed on the inheritance of a Highland estate. tatler.com/article/trans-…

So - we've been renovating our dilapidated old flat & it's been an adventure (but not actually dangerous). Not till a couple of weeks ago when we found a mystery tank behind a walls. Luckily our amazing surveyor was here & she halted work. 'We need to see what that is,' she said Twitter, it was an old kerosene tank that fired a building-wide heating system from 1930s - 1970s. Sometime in the 70s they just bricked it up and moved to natural gas. 'Wow,' I said naively, 'but it's empty right?' I'm not going to string it out. Twitter, it was NOT empty. OMG.

There's bungs to worry about right now & loads of ppl aren't sleeping well. So here are my tips 🧵for getting a decent 8 hrs. Blood glucose dips will wake you so go Miss Marple & have a wee snack at bedtime. My favie is proper hot choc: milk, real dark choc, sugar. Sorted. /1 Racing thoughts? Me too. I find playing 'Brown noise' helpful. It seems to stop my brain going off on one. Game changer. #sleep /2

Today, a 🧵 of Scottish women worthy of statues. Statues memorialise in a specific way. They honour achievement. First, Jennie Lee, MP and founder of the Open University. The work she did as Arts Minister was transformative. Also = Mrs Aneurin Bevan. /1 Williamina Fleming, born Dundee 1857 became an astronomer at Harvard University where she classified 10,351 stars, & discovered 10 novae, 52 nebulae & 222 variable stars. Hon member of Royal Astronomical Society 1906 (not allowed to be a full member cos she was a woman - bah!) /2

🧵About the historical sex trade in Edinburgh. Goodmorning. The go to starting place is Ranger's Impartial List of Ladies of Pleasure published 1775. It contains 66 entries of 'hoors' around town. Here's Lady Agnew's listing👇For sure there were more than 66 but it's a start /1 Lady Agnew was nothing new. Edinburgh had long been a 'stewing pot' Here's a prosecution from 1564 via @BeattieDr 'hur' this time not 'hoor' When prosecuted women cd have their hair cut short or be sent beyond the city limits until a 'relaxio' was ordered and they cd return/2

Today: a thread about how clothes inspire characters... cos you know I find fashion inspirational right? When I was developing characters for Fair Botanists I chose palettes for each woman. It annoys me that Regency women are always portrayed in muslin - it was a colourful era/1 This dress for example, was worn by one of the women (Elizabeth) to an evening party (her palette was pale pinks and blues) IRL this one is in the MET. Knowing what a character is wearing makes them easier to envisage as they move thru the story. I love the gauze effect... /2

Ok - so here's what happened at the weekend. I didn't tell you while it was going on cos Things. My daughter noticed a couple hanging round outside her flat, playing with her dog, Kim Chi with a squeaky toy, thru the railings. Aw, she thought, mebbe their dog died or sthg... /1 Kim Chi btw is a rescue, a sweet wee staffy with bad eyes and a lovely nature. The couple came back a few times - very kind to the dog and popping treats thru the railings now. My daughter filmed them and posted on her social media about these sweet people... /2

Today: a thread of ACTUAL Fair Botanists cos my novel did not come from nowhere. Hunners of amazing women were vital to botanical history. This is Jeanne Baret (1740-1807) 1st woman to circumnavigate the globe. Disguised as a man she collected 6000 plants. Total legend! /1 Second Joyce Lambert pictured here in the 1950s challenged the status quo and proved that the lakes of the Broads were in fact man-made cos She Knew Her Stuff. Also, excellent jodphurs, Joyce. /2

So: a short thread about the ongoing effect of the Holocaust (also called the Shoah) cos it's #HolocaustMemorialDay #LightTheDarkness #NeverAgain I grew up in a wealthy Jewish family in Edinburgh in the 70s. Nobody mentioned the Shoah. People didn't want to upset or scare kids./1 At the age when most kids learned Santa wasn't real, 1 of my Jewish pals found a video of a BBC doc about the death camps. They shared it. We were terrified. We came from families that had left places (Russia in the 1880s/1910s), Hungary, Germany None of us had realised why /2

I grew up in a house with an English Catholic Dad and a Scottish Jewish Mum. As a kid everything to me was just language. Just words. We spoke English with a sprinkling of Yiddish and Scots. I learned French and Latin at school and Ancient Hebrew at Jewish Sunday school ... /1 I think this is part of where my fascination for story came from. I still sometimes use vocabulary and don't know which language it comes from - most recently in a book where I used the word thole that I assumed was English but is really Scots. I only found out cos /2

THREAD: Scottish women who had impact in Europe. Born illegitimate in Oban, Victorian Rose Blaze de Bury moved to Paris, where she hosted a salon, wrote several novels, drafted an economic plan for Austria & helped set up a bank. She corresponded with Bismark. Jawdropping no? /1 Next, let's go to the EU era & Grace Campbell who went to court in Strasbourg in the 70s to have corporal punishment banned in UK schools. She won and Westminster had to legislate. What. A. Mama. vimeo.com/236910048 /2

So Menopause adventures: A THREAD👇of things that have worked for me. It's a personal journey but here's what I did. 1st, when I started researching most of what I read was way too subjective so I decided I needed measureables. Tip 1: take your base temperature every day. /1 If you have an iphone the health app will let you track it. I discovered my temperature was on the low side. 37 is normal. Days I woke with a 35 were bad days. Days that started 36 were better. And yes, there are ways to bring your temperature up. Among the most effective ... /2

The v brilliant @madebymodren created a custom bag for carrying Dotty and Dotty loves it so much she won't get out of it. 😂🐾 when she moves I will take pics of the secret compartments for all my stuff (don't hold yr breath) It's so perfect! Thank you Sandra. Xxx I love ordering things from independent makers. They take such trouble over everything.... so worth it. #shoplocal

I normally have my nieces & nephews for a Naughtiest Auntie Xmas party but not in 2020 so here are my wickedest games to keep small people occupied. 1: Cocktail Competition. Put out ice, mint, lemon, orange, cordials, appletise & fruit juice. They make their own & I judge. Fierce 2 Jelly Hunt. Their presents are hidden & the clue to find it is on a folded piece of paper inside cling film in a bowl of jelly. They are not allowed to use their hands to get it out. This is the one that is most talked about by the older kids as the best game fo the party.

Time for a THREAD👇: amazing Scottish women who had disabilities. Let's start with this lass, brilliant analytical chemist Christina Miller: deaf & blind in 1 eye. In the 1st 5 women fellows @news_RSE & an inspirational teacher. This building 👇 is named after her. Trailblazer /1 'Warrior in a wheelchair' Dr Margaret Blackwood MBE set up the Disability Income Group Scotland and founded a housing association to provide homes designed for disabled people (now @blackwood_HC). Legend. /2

Today: a new THREAD👇of sheroes: women who disappeared into their menfolk. 1st Dorothy Livesey Reynolds, a key geologist who worked w/ her husband at Edinburgh Uni but wasn't paid as it was deemed 'inappropriate' WHAT? She won a Lyell medal & was 1st female member of @news_RSE /1 Mathematicians & sisters Jane & Flora Sang pioneered work on logarithmic tables originally credited to this guy Edward (their dad) It wasn't until 1874 they were honoured by @news_RSE as the originators. So many women disappear into their relations' biographies. Sheesh! /2

Happy 700th to the Declaration of Arbroath, #Arbroath700 . It was a male concern but for #MondayMotivaton here's a THREAD of cracking 14th century lasses 👇1st, resistance leader, Christina Bruce (yes that Bruce) who held Kildrummy Castle in 1333. Pretty formidable quine. /1 Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, helped crown the Bruce in 1306. She was caged at Berwick for her affiliation with the Bruce cause - this means she was imprisoned in a cage hung off the side of a castle. In the open air. Say, what? I know, the middle ages were fierce. /2

#NHSLouisaJordan is trending but Louisa was only one of many brilliant Scottish medical women who contributed during WWI. So a THREAD of my favies 👇Flora Masson was awarded a Royal Red Cross 1st class & became a sister at Rosewell Hospital. She also wrote several biographies. /1 From Arran, Mary Lee Milne was head cook at the Scottish Women's Hospitals and worked closely with Dr Elsie Inglis, who was key to setting them up. Milne received a medal in 1916 cos she had been under fire. She later said 'I cannot bear to think of the things I saw.' /2

Bit of a crowd today at the Playfair Library to hear ⁦@joannaccherry⁩ present a lecture on Scotland's future - an independent country in Europe. It's packed! #scotlandsfuture ⁦@TheSkotia⁩ is filming .... She says the brexit process has shown how limited devolution can be & how a smaller state in a union can be treated. #scotlandsfuture - ie well by EU & badly by Westminster: even before brexit, when the snp sought delivery of promises made in 2014 and after. /1