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…
My late husband once told me something very obvious, except at the time it wasn’t in the least bit obvious to me. He told me that taking oneself to a place of elevation (Arthur’s Seat, for example), climbing up to a look-out point (say, the top of the Scott Monument), finding a view out over … Continue reading Looking Outward
Rear Window – have you seen it? It’s a Hitchcock classic; a masterful take on one man’s social isolation whilst living, incapacitated, in a bustling Lower Manhattan apartment block in the 1950s. As social distancing and self-isolation sweeps the world, I thought I’d revisit it. If you’re short of something to watch during these quiet … Continue reading Rear Window
I lay in bed last night listening to the news and thinking about the horrid days around us. This sent my mind spinning back to other times (which were mostly moments) that were I thought were horrid and would scar me forever; whereas now they’re like half remembered films where I can visualise certain scenes, … Continue reading That Horrid Time
Problem pages, Which? magazine subscriptions, best-of lists, tried and tested columns, other people’s life hacks: one can’t get out of bed for the constant flow of near dam-bursting advice that is washing at us from every corner. In a day an age when we are overwhelmed with choice it’s enormously tempting to stop thinking for … Continue reading Take My Advice
Here’s the thing about feeling stuck: when you are in it, you are convinced that it is a black and white situation, that people are either stuck, or unstuck. A flight is grounded, or it’s airborne and going places. There’s no in between for the stuck mind. And when you are stuck, you are convinced … Continue reading Stuck
I fear the whispering wind and the messages it brings me. It loosens worries from my head in unnerving gusts. I fear the whispers will become raised voices, shouts, screams of terror that pull waves from the ocean floor, rip slates from roofs, and send gulls spinning and shrieking and competing with plastic bags that … Continue reading The Whispering Wind
Have you ever had your tea leaves read, or the lines upon your palm scrutinized, or been ushered through a heavy curtain made from crushed velvet and fringed with gold, behind which a woman with smoky kohl eyes gazed into a crystal ball to tell you what lay in store for you? Two things have … Continue reading Crystal Ball
Paradox: a logical statement that seems to contradict itself; something that is not what it seems. My dad taught me what it was by having me learn this one: ‘The code of the road is a paradox quite, if you keep to the left you are sure to be right.’ It doesn’t work in America. … Continue reading Paradox
The temperature is dropping, the days are shortening, the wind is heightening. Morning mists cling. The grass isn't calling to be cut so often. Routine, order, timetables – they’re all being restored. Light cotton dresses are folded and put in the bottom drawer, sandals to the back of the cupboard, the straw hat releases a … Continue reading On The First Day of September
