On the days when the batteries in my legs have run low, or when I know it is going to be a particularly beautiful evening, I save my daily walk until late in the day and venture out for a shorter stroll up Calton Hill. It is a still night. Cawing seagulls, a waspish buzz … Continue reading For We Ha’e Faith
The Big Clap – did you do it? Wasn’t it great? I nearly forgot, but I heard them getting going, and came out from the kitchen into the front room, opened my window two floors up and leaned out into the darkness to clap. I find every standing ovation moving, but this one even more … Continue reading Clap Hands
‘Every now and then life says, where do you think you’re going so fast?’ We’re apt to think it’s cruel but sometimes it’s a case of cruel to be kind.’ Those are a couple of lines from a Ron Sexsmith song called ‘Gold In Them Hills’. He’s a Canadian singer songwriter with a voice that … Continue reading Every Now and Then Life Says
‘The thing I dread most, far more than the gossip – and God knows, I really don't like gossip – is the pity. The thought of people feeling sorry for me is too much. My worst nightmare is others holding a pity party on the coat tails of my misfortune.’ It had been a long time … Continue reading I Don’t Want Pity
I don't know what age children are when they start asking, ‘But why?’ Are they three-years old? Four? And when does the, ‘But why?’ battery wear out? I going to guess it wears out sometime around sixteen; the age at which the questions evaporate because they (kid-ults) know the answer to everything. From such secure … Continue reading But Why?
Two men appeared outside my kitchen window. This is no mean feat, as my flat is three floors up. Below them I could hear noisy clattering and voices shouting instructions. Then braces, brackets, poles and boards appeared. Jack In The Beanstalk style, an ugly metal structure was shooting up, as a long, thin section of … Continue reading Scaffolding
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
Choice: it is, perhaps, the single, most important determinant in how our lives turn out; in how we plough a furrow through this world. Yes, some people, often through fate of birth, are born to a life of enhanced opportunity with an array of choices before them, whilst others are born into a ready-made obstacle … Continue reading I May, I Might, I Must
A.’s car wouldn’t start this morning. It might have been the cold. When we were small, five Hail Marys got our car going when the temperature dropped and the engine hacked like a 30-a-day smoker and refused to budge – it worked every time. Its clogged up mechanical throat cleared and it spluttered to life … Continue reading Prayer Push
I’m finding it hard to let go of the weekend. It was such a lovely one, pink whipped morning skies and trails of orange cloud by evening; the evening (when measured by the availability of light) being 3.30pm. Neither my mind nor body have quite made it to Monday and I’m hankering to be back … Continue reading Pigs Might Fly
