I once knew a woman whose ambition it was to play the harp but life and raising a family got in the way so she told me she would play it when she got to heaven instead. I have not seen or thought about this person for thirty years until this week, when I heard … Continue reading What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?
A late June night. I’d picked her up from the tram, and we were driving back along York Place. From there, we drove down Leith Walk, briefly passing through Haddington Place, before we turned onto Montgomery Street. She lifted her hand, an involuntary action, she didn't seem to know she was doing it, and pressed … Continue reading Absence
I threaded my belt back through the loops of my jeans and fastened the buckle. Then I laced my boots, making a mental note not to wear them next time I flew; such a palaver of eyes and hooks and long laces to wind around my ankles before double knotting. ‘How about a cup of … Continue reading The Truth About Love
I heard the phrase a few years ago when a young student sidled up to my husband at an event we were attending, stretched out his arm and offered his hand, saying, ‘I am so pleased to meet you, I have had a brain crush on you for years.’ What does one say in such … Continue reading Brain Crush
Come on, remove that petulant pout, suppress that cynical mutter of, “valentine-schmalentine” and admit that, deep down, you love it too. Who cares if it has become overly commercialised? Hasn't everything? So drop the Hallmark-hate, stop boycotting bouquets, and quit with the sudden intolerance for chocolate. As for being single? So what? I’m single and I still … Continue reading Valentine-Schmalentine
“I’m passionate about baking, singing, cooking, dancing, sewing, potting.” Insert whatever activity you like according to whatever cook-off or dance-off or bake-off is airing these days, and you can be sure that you’ll hear every contestant tell us they are ‘passionate’. Which is as it should be; after all, no sane person would put themselves under the spotlight … Continue reading Lukewarm
The things you learn at school set hard like concrete. You don't know they’re buried deep in your brain, until something is said and all of a sudden - pow! - like cracking through the earth and tapping the well, out pour words or songs or facts; pure springs of knowledge you’d forgotten you knew. So … Continue reading Let Me Count The Ways
Is there any better song in the word about the sweetness of infatuation than the Gershwin brothers’, ‘I Got A Crush On You’? Composed by George, with lyrics by his brother Ira, it describes the giddy confusion that comes with harbouring a crush. “How glad the many millions of Annabelles and Lilians would be, to … Continue reading Crush
“There’s nothing worse than widows. Even priests will tell you that.” So writes John McGahern in his novel, ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’. It’s a line he gives to an old, moneyed bachelor, one who doesn't know how to spend his accumulations, and has a fear that the sure way to lose it … Continue reading Let The Hare Sit
When time has elapsed, and you can put enough distance between yourself and whatever it is that has been getting you down, a sense of perspective will descend. Sometimes you might even see the funny side. Between the saddest lines we speak and write and think, there can often be a gentle take on it … Continue reading The Saddest Lines
