I love the part of being home that allows me to meet up with old friends, small reunions that taste so much sweeter after these long months of social confinement. The days of the open door and of ‘come on in’ have not quite returned, but the outdoor replacements – beaches and backyards, park benches … Continue reading Old Friends
‘That's the trouble with reality, it's taken far too seriously.’ It’s line from a song that’s trapped in my head, dancing around in there as I encourage its sentiment to take root. Back in the nineties an Irish band called An Emotional Fish had a hit song, ‘Celebrate’ and that’s what the line is from. … Continue reading The Trouble With Reality
You know you’re going mad when… You take to the skirting boards with a toothbrush to clean around the cracks. You panic buy a 65-inch smart TV. You decide Barry Manilow really does write the songs that make the whole world sing. You look forward to C. calling you to talk for an hour about … Continue reading You Know You’re Going Mad When…
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
