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
To pursue whatever you set your mind to with the joy of a six year-old child: that’s said to be how we should seek to live. This supposes that every six-year old child embraces all of life joyfully, which they probably don’t, as personality and nature come into play. Largely, though, small children do seem … Continue reading Innocence
Yesterday, I was the recipient of a cheeky wink. It was lobbed to me as I was disembarking the train at York in a distracted flurry, trying hard not to forget my trail of accoutrements that, over two and a half hours, I had liberally deposited above me (on the rack), beside me (on the … Continue reading Wink
‘A Scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.’ So decreed Robert Baden Powell when he drafted rule number eight of his manual, Scouting For Boys. It contains nine Scouting rules - ‘A Scout is thrifty’ being the ninth - and, amongst those seven rules ranking higher than what I’m calling the ‘cheerful rule’, are: loyalty, obedience, … Continue reading Reasons to be Cheerful
The way through the forest to get to the cottage on Crosby Lake is definitely not a road, but it’s not quite a dirt track either. Whatever you might call it, it has ‘gateway to wilderness’ written all over it in the form of chipmunks scurrying across the path, the hindquarters of deer disappearing into … Continue reading Gratitude
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
Tomorrow is International Day of Happiness and I am doing some preparatory work. I wouldn't go into a piano exam without practicing, would I? So I think it best to get ahead of myself by rehearsing some of the tricks one might employ to bolster an attack of low spirits. A. says, “skip to keep … Continue reading Oh Happy Day
My friends: where would I be without them? These days, as I’m still in the early stages of finding new friends – and it’s much easier to find pennies lying on the street than it is to find new friends – my old friends support me from afar. They shout from the wings: line prompts, … Continue reading Friends
“Of course you can stay, come on over.” The exodus had begun. Edinburgh was on shutdown as offices emptied out early in an attempt to get their workers home before 3pm when all public transport would grind to a halt. E. and S. had missed the last train out to East Lothian. A plan was … Continue reading Clunk
My name rhymes with ‘beamer’. Sometimes they would call me that at school. They weren’t referring to a high end German make of luxury car when they used the word; no, ‘beamer’ referred to that rosy shade of blush-red one goes when embarrassed, mortified by some mild humiliation – a.k.a. ‘taking a beamer’. The funny … Continue reading Beamer
