Because I can, I am starting a sentence with because. Some might grimace at my syntaxical audacity, but there you go, I’ve done it. Because it’s June. It’s the longest day of the year, and I’m giving you - and myself - licence to do what we want. Go light a big bonfire on a hill … Continue reading Because It’s June
It’s year two of living alone, for the first time in 10 years or so. I had no nervousness about it. Not from the point of view of feeling vulnerable, or frightened by things that go bump in the night. Being on my own in a house has never bothered me. The main thing that … Continue reading Linked Together
The World Cup has rolled around again. If you love it, you’ll have flung the front door open, arms stretched wide in welcome, and the eternity that was four years of waiting will have come to an end. On the other hand, those of you who are lukewarm towards the tournament are more likely to … Continue reading Success Is Counted Sweetest
“Have you been there recently?”B. asked me in the course of a meandering catch-up conversation. I hadn’t. It was a café she’d visited the week before and she was remarking that, although it had one of the most amazing views in town, the staff were unfriendly to the point of her being put off ever … Continue reading Eye Contact; We Contact
‘80% of success is showing up’: so said Woody Allen. He admitted that sometimes it’s much easier to stay at home in bed, but if you want to achieve something – as obvious as it may sound – you’ve got to show up. The great artists, writers, musicians, scientists, sportspersons, dancers - all of them … Continue reading Showing Up
I have some people close to me who are sad at the moment, for different reasons, juggling a variety of challenges that life cruelly hurls from time to time. And sometimes the trigger for the sadness may have passed, but the feeling lingers. Like a bad flu you just can't shake, the gloom sits in … Continue reading Send In The Clowns
Ours was a late flight last night. It got us in well after midnight, and, with the final leg of the journey by car, I was falling into bed close to 3am. It was a deep sleep, the sleep of the travel-weary, the sleep of being back home (or one version of home). Not that I didn't … Continue reading Sleep
Holiday? Did I say something about lying on a sun-lounger, drinking sangria and lazily soaking in the holiday sun? I take it all back! I have been mugged, mobbed and molested by my Spanish-Irish friend’s three children. Let me think: F. is a fearless eight year-old, S. is spirited and six, and A. is three, an … Continue reading It’s Always Ourselves We Find In The Sea
“There’s nothing worse than widows. Even priests will tell you that.” So writes John McGahern in his novel, ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’. It’s a line he gives to an old, moneyed bachelor, one who doesn't know how to spend his accumulations, and has a fear that the sure way to lose it … Continue reading Let The Hare Sit
A Sunday evening flight to Malaga from sunny Belfast. We’re booked on the airline run by the man whose name rhymes with ‘bleary’ – which is how I am feeling. We’re not even in the air yet. We’ve been unlucky to be herded on late. Only a little late, but late enough to miss our … Continue reading Worse Things Happen At Sea
