‘But it’s the truth. Isn’t the truth a good thing?’ A friend had asked for my input about a tricky situation, a conflict with someone else that was escalating via electronic messages. When I told them I thought their response was too much, that it should be pared back, cooled down, they – quite rightly … Continue reading Holding Back
A car horn is for two things: 1. To indicate peril, threat to life, impending death. In this instance the horn should be used in a sharp, short burst to alert adjacent vehicle(s) to the possibility of a horrible accident about to unfurl. 2. It’s a rural town in Ireland and the local publican’s daughter … Continue reading Beep Beep
People are everything in life. Our relationships, how we communicate, what we understand (and misunderstand) about each other - people make up the essential fabric of our lives. They have the capacity to cause us the greatest headache or the greatest joy, and such extremes of emotion can often be triggered by the same person. … Continue reading They’re Human Too
Is yours the skin of a rhinoceros through which no harsh words can penetrate? Are you clad in waterproof feathers, the ones that adorn a duck’s back, so that criticism rolls from you, leaving you unaffected, rather than disaffected? Do you have a certain kinship with that thin film of Teflon on my frying pan, … Continue reading Sticks and Stones
At school I had a very strict Primary Five teacher, Miss M.. I started the year as an innocent eight year old, and ended it as a slightly disenchanted nine year old. No harm done, that’s growing up; isn't it? Miss M. had a great range of ‘wise’, snippy sayings: her no-nonsense approach to education … Continue reading Empty Vessels
I used to work with J. She sat adjacent to door of the CEO’s office and, in eight years of working there, he persistently got her name wrong. He would almost get it right, but not quite – Ann instead of Anna, that sort of thing. It wasn’t deliberate, and J. knew it; she’d long … Continue reading Be Nice
Since when has telling one’s children in urgent, threatening stage whispers to, “behave!” when they’ve more than slightly lost the run of themselves, gone out of fashion? It seems to me that it has been: replaced with the maxim that rules supress the imagination; supplanted by the notion that robust play fuels creativity; brushed aside … Continue reading Behave
My Edinburgh Press 