Thursday 30 December 2021
Between Christmas and New Year
Sunday 26 December 2021
Christmas Cheer
Tuesday 21 December 2021
An evening with Rick Wakeman
Monday 20 December 2021
Not quite Christmas as usual
Saturday 18 December 2021
Goodbye to Longannet
Thursday 16 December 2021
I love Manchester
Friday 10 December 2021
Bookcases
No-one Loves Me
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children.
The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake.
Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children.
I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right?
You could make this place beautiful.
Sunday 5 December 2021
An unexpectedly excellent day
Racked with guilt for not accompanying James to Australian Pink Floyd yesterday, I was determined to accompany him to the Hill-walking club’s annual Mince Pies Outing today. I was worried that I would still be feeling under the weather after my Covid booster, but I woke up feeling much better. We met the others (there were fourteen of us) at the Faerie Tree Inn in Aberfoyle, and had breakfast rolls and coffee before setting out on our various walks. While the majority of the group set off to climb a nearby Marilyn up past the David Marshall Lodge, Iris, Hilary and I went on a very pleasant low level walk around picturesque Lochan Spling. Well not quite all the way around it, because there were quite a few trees blocking the path after the recent high winds. It was a beautiful day; cold and crisp with blue skies. As we walked along who did we meet but Liz from my book club, also out for a walk with two friends on this lovely morning. It’s a small world! We ended up walking about 8 km and arrived back at the Faerie Tree Inn not long before the others. And then of course we had mince pies and mulled wine and Santa even made an appearance! I gave my “Hill-walking Quiz” which I think went down well, and Bob did his raffle. It was a fun and festive occasion. When I got home I was absolutely exhausted and am blogging in my cosy bed.