I’m reading a book on loan to me. S. brought it back from a trip to Australia earlier this year. ‘Any Ordinary Day’ is by Leigh Sales. It’s a collection of stories about the very worst things people can experience that rise up, out of the blue. The title is important; they are stories of … Continue reading Any Ordinary Day
I’m just back from a few days in Ireland, of the Northern variety. There was much talk of uncertainty. T. spoke about her father’s farm, the far fields of which run along the seam of the border. “There’s more talk of Brexit than there are cups of tea taken, and that’s saying something,” she told me. … Continue reading Brace Ourselves For Change
In the west of Scotland there’s a tiny island, south of Oban, called Easdale where there are no cars, no roads, no street lamps and about sixty inhabitants. It’s nestled between the Isle of Mull and the mainland, making it feel soft and sheltered, or perhaps that was just the luck of my visit to … Continue reading Simplicity
It was either Elsa or Anna (I should know which) who implored us to, ‘Let it go’, as she belted her message out, Disney style. And why not take advice from a cartoon character when the conventional leadership and global governance of the day plays out like a poorly scripted soap opera? We may take … Continue reading The Year Is Going, Let Him Go
‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it can only be lived forwards.’ These are the words of Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, theologian and poet. I was at a conference last week where one of the speakers, from Denmark, drew extensively from the work of Kierkegaard. When he told us he was going to delve … Continue reading Young and Old
“What do you do?” It’s one of the go-to questions, asked when meeting someone for the first time in order to find out about their work. We ask it to discover who they are, what makes them tick, what their significance in the world is. For occupation, it seems - erroneously or otherwise - is linked … Continue reading Legacy
I am of the generation where we ‘backed’ our books at the start of each new school year. Dog-eared and a bit tattered from use the year before (in fact, use over multiple years), a growing pile would be distributed by the teacher in September, leaning like the Tower of Pisa, in preparation for ten … Continue reading Change
No matter how much I cull my packing when I go on holiday, I always bring too much. I’m getting better, but I am slow to learn that three weeks away does not mean three times the clothes; really it doesn’t (emphasis for my own sake). And, since I’ve been abroad, not once have I thought, … Continue reading Attachment
Oh boy, are the roses ever good this year. They loved the prolonged blast of sun we had at the end of May and onto into June. Friends from Kent, York and Ireland all sent me photographs from their gardens: pink, yellow and white blooms, as full and buxom as Gina Lollobrigida. It made me … Continue reading It’s Been A Good Year For The Roses
