Dalkeith Country Park is located at the south east edge of Edinburgh. I went there yesterday to walk in an ancient oak wood, hunkered down between the meeting of the North and South Esk Rivers. Weather and rain had undone the wood; it was resting, bare, and the mud underfoot was glorious. Even suitably booted, … Continue reading Weather and Rain Have Undone It Again
‘You need a man.’ I looked M. up and down before I told her, but her want of a man was obvious, and urgent. ‘Preferably a well-proportioned one.’ M. looked around the shop surreptitiously, as though preparing to sneak up on one, pounce and grab him. But this was a man-free shop. The two women … Continue reading Coats On
I stood on the edge of a carpet of decaying roses in the middle of July of this year, which was, I think, around six weeks after they had been laid down. What amazed me was how long the flowers were lasting; that is to say, how they were still offering something to be enjoyed … Continue reading Decay
It looked beautiful outside, lulled me into forgetting we are balanced on the edge of winter and so I ventured into the pale blue day, ill clad. Needles - the air was full of them - pricked me all over, scrubbed my cheeks red and made my eyes to stream. One glove off, I dabbed … Continue reading Winter Blues
I feel like I’m adjusting from this to that, from something to other, but I have no idea what either is. I simply have a sense that I am somewhere indeterminate, somewhere between before and after. How’s that for a jumbled description of my current juddering internal compass? Let me try harder to explain. It’s as … Continue reading Stew
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
Nine balls I found; lurking under hedges, behind the shed, deep under the straggly hydrangea, wedged by the oil tank, away up in the corner where the first of the rhubarb is waking. They hadn’t been breeding, I know this because they are all of a different species: a medicine ball – the oversized one … Continue reading Balls
In Edinburgh, we have gained 50 seconds more light today compared with yesterday. Tomorrow, a further 58 seconds will be added to the bag, over a minute the following day, and by New Year’s Eve we’ll have a whole six minutes more of daylight than we had on the shortest day a week ago. Not … Continue reading Tender Is The Night
According to an Ipsos-MORI poll, a large majority of people (79%) think that there is more swearing on television now than ten years ago. And here’s another poll-generated statistic: only 55% of people trust civil servants to tell the truth. I generally skim over such statistics, for, when I read claims about the pulse of … Continue reading Avert Your Eyes
‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it can only be lived forwards.’ These are the words of Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, theologian and poet. I was at a conference last week where one of the speakers, from Denmark, drew extensively from the work of Kierkegaard. When he told us he was going to delve … Continue reading Young and Old
