I’m staying in the Scottish Highlands this week, in the middle of nowhere. On Monday, I drove four hours north until I had reached absolutely nowhere, threw a left up a hill, further into nowhere, and finally I turned right down a dirt track until I reached the very heart of nowhere. Trundling the last … Continue reading Caterpillar
Micro seasons – I had never heard of such a thing until R. explained the concept to me and immediately it made sense. Four even seasons, neatly contained within three-month blocks, is far too wide a cut to allow for any of the nuance that cusps between seasons can bring. How on earth can we … Continue reading Micro Seasons
Here I am at the seaside, again. Torquay this time. Home to Fawlty Towers, and the inimitable Manuel (Qué?). Maybe we’ve hit on a particularly good weekend but I get the feeling it is often like this in Torquay: hot and sunny with endless blue skies. Eternally tanned pensioners watch knots of youngsters crabbing at … Continue reading The Running Tide
I was listening to a gardening programme on the radio at the weekend while driving back to Edinburgh along the East Lothian coast. It was the usual Sunday Q&A, this time broadcast from Northern Ireland where one woman, from the Ards Peninsula, asked why her foxgloves were eight feet tall this year. Most of the expert … Continue reading Flowers Appear On The Earth
Sometimes April doesn’t keep its promise. It reneges. Burrows back down a hole, pretending it never was. It had been that way this week, when many of us had to check the calendar, only to utter, ‘Really? April 4th? Are we sure about that?’ Character building weather, one might call it, unless one is feeling delicate, … Continue reading April Showers
Setting off backwards, with a view to the west from my seat on the train, the sun is so bright that it hurts my eyes. A storm is forecast, it should be here by now. The weather is running late. Rabbits are frozen like ornaments in a scrap of scrubby field alongside a stream. The stream … Continue reading Journey
There are so many causes worthy of one’s support. Most of us will have at least one cause or charity we hold dear. If you are from a seaside town it might be the lifeboat. If you lost a loved one to a disease for which there is no cure, it might be medical research … Continue reading Tread Lightly
My visitors are here. Flew in from Canada early yesterday morning. Very early for me, as I got to see the lark-side of this city: wide-awake, bustling, industrious. The sight of if would have made Edinburgh’s enlightened forefathers proud. “How are you feeling?” I asked between hugs on Waverley Bridge. “Fine!” came the universal response, … Continue reading Lashing, Splashing, Dashing
I arrived into London’s Kings Cross three hours late, running through the connecting underground passageways of the Tube network towards the Victoria line in a pool of sweat. ‘Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies merely glow,’ my father once taught me. Would that it were true. It was 34 degrees and I was sweating. “Sorry! So … Continue reading And Breathe
He was right, T.S. Eliot: April most definitely is the cruellest month. A time when the days have lengthened and we are ready to stretch with them, but (true this year) when we are continually pounded by weather that refuses to show its gentle side. ‘The Waste Land’, T.S. Eliot ‘April is the cruellest month, … Continue reading April Is The Cruellest Month
