I fear the whispering wind and the messages it brings me. It loosens worries from my head in unnerving gusts. I fear the whispers will become raised voices, shouts, screams of terror that pull waves from the ocean floor, rip slates from roofs, and send gulls spinning and shrieking and competing with plastic bags that … Continue reading The Whispering Wind
It doesn’t take a sledgehammer to crack a nut – the only person I ever heard say that was my grandfather when he thought someone was doing a job ill-matched to their skills and ability. His words came back to me this week as I read Michael Viney’s, ‘A Year’s Turning’ – a book that … Continue reading A Person of Your Education
New Year’s Resolution: adopt more causes. The problem is, there is a proliferation of them. A cursory search for something worthwhile threw up too many, causing me to furrow my brow, so I’ve decided to plough my own furrow and create my own list of (perhaps light-hearted) causes. Cause Number One: Campaign to save spurned … Continue reading Rebel With a Cause
This happens to me every year: I sleep my head off in January. I wake up and it has rolled off during the night, usually under the bed, and I am so heavy with the remnants of lassitude that it takes me half an hour to reach down, scoop it up and screw it back … Continue reading Slumber Number
‘Put the phone down and live in the moment!’ – hasn’t that been the refrain for some time now? I get it, and mostly I try to do it. However, from time to time, I do love to excuse myself from the present and become so absorbed in capturing the moment that I’m removed from … Continue reading Orphan Photographs
Dear 2019, It’s not me, it’s you. Yet, despite you being the one leaving me, I’m not going to take it badly. I refuse for us to part on bad terms. At this stage in the game, I’ve got used to how you operate: you’re all full-on at the start of the year, promising me … Continue reading Breaking Up is Hard to Do
‘I don’t like it when you write about any of that fluffy stuff. If it’s a piece on trees and the sky and nature I don’t bother to read to the end. It’s the same with babies; they’re of no interest to me until they are two or three-years old, only then do I bother … Continue reading A Child Is Born
Have you ever had your tea leaves read, or the lines upon your palm scrutinized, or been ushered through a heavy curtain made from crushed velvet and fringed with gold, behind which a woman with smoky kohl eyes gazed into a crystal ball to tell you what lay in store for you? Two things have … Continue reading Crystal Ball
Dalkeith Country Park is located at the south east edge of Edinburgh. I went there yesterday to walk in an ancient oak wood, hunkered down between the meeting of the North and South Esk Rivers. Weather and rain had undone the wood; it was resting, bare, and the mud underfoot was glorious. Even suitably booted, … Continue reading Weather and Rain Have Undone It Again
‘You need a man.’ I looked M. up and down before I told her, but her want of a man was obvious, and urgent. ‘Preferably a well-proportioned one.’ M. looked around the shop surreptitiously, as though preparing to sneak up on one, pounce and grab him. But this was a man-free shop. The two women … Continue reading Coats On
