I have this silly habit of turning to the end of a novel to read the acknowledgements before I’ve even started reading the first chapter. Don’t know why I do it; I think perhaps it humanises the author for me, places them in the context of their family and friends. I wonder how a friend … Continue reading To All My Neglected Friends
“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beats and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, friend hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.” Ulysses, James Joyce. When … Continue reading One About Eating
Farewell morning. Group photos at the front of the house, standing by the potted geraniums on the steps behind the buxom dahlias (flowers that are never knowingly under-dressed). Barb and I are dressed to match the flowers. I’m wearing a geometric print red dress, she’s in a botanical-printed short-legged jumpsuit. ‘When it’s short like this … Continue reading Scoosh In
There we were, out on the ocean, lilting and bouncing like the jig of the same name, quickly moving from high to low. Michael is skipper: deeply tanned face, hoop ring in one ear – a pirate look, without being too cliched about it. We’re in a RIB, a rigid bottom, inflatable around the rim, light … Continue reading Out on the Ocean
It is 1978. Everyone is talking about Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It has taken longer to get to Ireland. All films do. “Everyone says its brilliant,” my brothers say. “We’re going,” they say. I am interested, but not interested enough to beg to go along with them. I tell you this because, were … Continue reading Portrush, Harbour Diving Boards
In this place there is no bedtime and no set time to rise, both are done in keeping with one’s mood, whim, energies. In this place there is always energy. This place has loose joints, vitality, a spring in its step. Here, skin is smooth, wrinkles are fine tracings of smile lines, worries are pushed … Continue reading Summer at Home
Alone in the conservatory, house full of people, none yet risen, is the feel of Portrush in the summer. Half an hour’s serenity before sixteen hours of clatter and movement. For now, all is still and quiet, but behind the silence is a mix tape soundtrack of the day wakening. Back door ajar, I hear … Continue reading Morning
Over four nights, I read The Old Man and The Sea to the two brothers, twenty-five pages before they went to bed. I did wonder at their eyes staring into corners of the room, seeming to follow spiders, or shadows, sometimes a hand reaching absently for another Ginger Snap. Were they listening at all, or were they … Continue reading Destroyed but Not Defeated
There are four of them in the shed. For nine months of the year, they languish, the cobwebs build until May or June when they are taken out, one by one – rickety, arthritic, creaking – and are wheeled around the back lawn like an invalid in rehab. An assessment of what needs done to … Continue reading Eight Wheels
Heat shimmers on the ocean and the ferry pulls away from the land and dolphins dive the length of Lough Ryan only to disappear when we reach the wide-open Irish Sea. Once docked, I drive to the Antrim coast, arriving before dark, dizzy from not having drunk enough water on the journey and I fall … Continue reading July Holidays
My Edinburgh Press 