Gabriel Byrne, the Irish actor, had a book out last year, I heard him talk about it on a radio interview. I didn’t know it was him at first, I just thought, ‘there’s a man with a lovely accent who knows how to tell a story’, and so I kept listening, mostly because of that … Continue reading The Best We Can Do Is Move On
Small consolations. That’s what the last year has been full of. We are told to observe them, to remember that life is made up of them, a series of tiny moments, most of which we dismiss as inconsequential. Yet the more we take notice of the small consolations, the more apparent it is that they … Continue reading A Year of Consolation
What do you miss being able to do?
On feeling precarious right now.
Make like a Gumble and get through the new lockdown.
We’re not quite done with it yet, but as good as. Just a couple more days and we’ll be into a new year with fresh challenges. Are you glad to see the back of 2020, or were there some things about the year that surprised you and that you secretly quite liked?
British yachtsman, Alex Thomson, is currently competing in the Vendée-Globe; a round-the-world, single-handed sailing race. It should take him around ten to eleven weeks to complete it. I heard him interviewed on the radio one morning this week, just nine days in. I shivered with horror as I lay in bed calculating how many days … Continue reading Navigating the Doldrums
I’ve not been feeling well lately and so I’ve been moping around, achieving little. At least that’s what I tell myself, whilst successfully discounting those bits and bobs I am getting done between bouts of inactivity. Yet all I can focus on is the inactivity, which is very unfashionable these days, to be slothful, unless … Continue reading What Am I Doing?
Today, I am obsessing about spikes.
I had never heard the phrase before and then (how does this happen?) I came across it again within twenty-four hours. ‘Happiness writes white,’ he said. ‘When I am content, I have no inspiration. Ease causes the muse to fly.’ I didn’t want to believe it, that one needs to be tortured in order to … Continue reading Happiness Writes White
