Category Archives: Uncategorized

Usually, when I sit down to write, the words come flying out. They are busy, and jostling, impatient to get to their destination. It’s rare that I am lost for words. Now, I am a little lost. But I have to write this down because it needs words. I want the words to remember it,Continue reading “The Last Goodbye”

I wake up to find Scotland basking in the most ravishing autumn sunshine. At this time of year, the light changes and takes on a thick, amber aspect. It always makes me think of the light of old Italy; something in my imagination insists that this is the light that Horace and Pliny knew.  IContinue reading “18th September, 2021. Aubergines and Insults and the Mysteries of Social Media”

When I work with writers, I always tell them to cut loose. Open the gate, I say, and let yourself gallop out onto the wide green prairie. I sit on the Zoom, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles away from them and I throw my arms wide. ‘The only limitation,’ I say, grinning all over myContinue reading “20th August, 2021. For the Hell of It.”

12th August, 2021. On Twitter, a person writes: Lost his life today, 12th August, 1940. Sgt Josef Kwiecinski. Polish. One of The Few. He failed to return from a combat south of the Isle of Wight in his Hurricane and was reported ‘Missing’. He was never found. Age 23. No photo. No grave. I stop.Continue reading “Josef Kwiecinski”

I wake up thinking about inspiration and positivity. (Perhaps this is because I have been watching the Olympics.) I look at myself sternly in the glass, ready to tell myself galvanising things. I think, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ Then I think that’s not quite right. Maybe I should beContinue reading “29th July, 2021. Thoughts on Inspirational Words, and Marcus Aurelius, and the Olympics, and Eric Liddell, and Dancing Horses, and Where the Power Comes From.”