Ask someone about the super power they would most like to have, and apparently the top answer is: the ability to read other people’s minds. Wow - that might be the end of a few marriages! I can’t think of anything worse. I was mulling it over as I was sitting in the silence of … Continue reading Super Powers
Today is the twelfth day of Christmas, the end of the season, the Epiphany, marking the arrival of the three Kings to the birth of Jesus. In Ireland, this day is known as ‘Little Christmas’ - also called Nollaig na mBan, which translates as Women’s Christmas. It used to be quite widely celebrated and apparently … Continue reading The Dead
What are you up to tonight? This evening, when the wind that is currently whipping through Edinburgh abates, might you head up Princes Street to see the fireworks going off by the Castle? Will you stop for a romantic kiss under the Balmoral Hotel clock at the stroke of midnight? Or will you just stay … Continue reading Auld Lang Syne
At Christmas and New Year we send cards and messages wishing each other happiness, merriment, prosperity, contentment, joy, fulfilment. Probably one of the most common wishes we bestow upon each other is that of peacefulness - peace for Christmas and for the year to come. So common is it to write blessings of peace in … Continue reading Peace
Yesterday, I was in the midst of magic as the children from Edinburgh’s Royal Blind School took me on an odyssey. Actually, they took me on ‘The Odyssey’, which was the basis for their annual Christmas Show. These young people live with visual impairments, many have additional support needs and complex multiple disabilities. Watching them, … Continue reading Odyssey
Has saying grace before meals fallen out of favour? As a ‘learn-by-wrote’ prayer or thankful phrase said before or after eating a meal, I get the feeling it’s a lot less said than it used to be. On the other hand, if we look upon grace as a statement of awareness, a word of thanks, … Continue reading Grace
“Atchoo! Hello?” L. snuffled down the phone. “Bless you,” I said, before telling her who I was. She recognised my voice anyway. I asked how long she’d had the rotten cold. More than a week, came the answer. Her visitors, a young mum and a baby, had brought it with them, shared it around, and … Continue reading Bless You
I read a short news story this week that appealed to me. It concerned a handwritten note by Albert Einstein that turned up for auction in Jerusalem 95 years after he had penned it. He had written the note whilst staying at the Imperial Hotel, Japan in 1922 when he was there on a lecture … Continue reading Don’t Hurry
My Edinburgh Press 