Category: Diary
-
Green tax, blue motion, red squirrel
Red squirrel, Blue Motion, what’s the connection? Well there’s a nice surprise. I just paid my car tax online and it turned out to be a pleasant experience. Not only because a dinky little car guides you along each stage of the journey on the DVLA website but at the end of it the bill…
-
Lost World replaced
The next instant it was gone – and so was our dinner. Ed Malone in the Lost World Hot foot in the snow to St Andrew Square to check poetry stakes are still in place. So far so good, though last week I obviously blogged too soon. The Lost World vanished from the garden within…
-
Planting poetry and other subversive thoughts
On the No 8 bus this morning I peered anxiously out of the window as we passed St Andrew Square. Ever since I helped to plant poetry in the garden for the Lost World Read the weather seems to be doing its best to blow the whole lot to the kingdom of Fife. Or some…
-
Elk ride again – and again
“I suggest taking a couple of deep breaths, putting your head down and going like hell.” Many happy returns. I’m opening my blog for the first time this year to find an old story has come back to life. Very nearly two years ago I posted a picture sent to me by my cousin Beryl…
-
What broken society?
New media gives schoolchildren the chance to present their own view of the world And there at last was Crawfordjohn; a ribbon of wet tarmac unwinding to a small place hidden in the South Lanarkshire hills. A village so small the church had to close and there are only 12 children in the primary…
-
Amsterdam here we come
I am closing down the computer and then it’s off to Amsterdam for a few days. Looking forward to it all the more because Roel has sent a link to the galleries and exhibitions this month and a last minute email from Fran directs me to Vertigo Cafe in Vondel Park. It’s near the Film…
-
Open books, open minds
This is London, in Edinburgh the living books wore black T shirts How odd that none of our local press took an interest in this event, Scotland’s first Living Library. In other cities (from the first event in Copenhagen to the latest UK event in Bradford) the place has been crawling with reporters and cameras.…
-
Meet the ‘living blog’
Oh dear, what have I left myself in for? I am sitting between two poets, in front of us there’s a war veteran and a man from Alcoholics Anonymous. All around me there are people with amazing stories to tell: people from Africa, China, Poland, Dubai as well as Edinburgh. We are here because we…
-
Red squirrel comes to Pond Cottage
There was a moment of disbelief. We’ve got so used to chasing grey squirrels from the bird table (there is no such thing as a squirrel-proof feeder) that I thought the sun must be playing tricks with the colour. But this squirrel really was red and, we have since discovered, possibly the first sighting of…
-
Waiting and winding time
For the first (and almost certainly the last) time I am moved to post a comment on Have Your Say this morning. To my surprise the BBC website asks me to remove my obscene and offensive language before submitting the comment for approval. I can only think it is because I have mentioned the stage…
-
On another planet
Is Baroness Warsi the Sarah Palin of the Tory Party? I watched last night’s Question Time torn between hilarity and horror. If I am disillusioned by Labour it is always sobering to see how very much worse that other lot could be. Thank goodness for dear old (Lord) Roy Hattersley (and he used to seem…