Blog Archives

Sonnet with Indian

Perhaps one is more aware of it as one gets older and looks more and more for meaning in things, but serendipity seems to me to strike with increasing frequency and impact. At our recent Dark Angels gathering we asked … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Company of angels

I love Moniack Mhor, the Scottish writers’ centre near Inverness. I’ve often written about it here. Some of our most memorable Dark Angels experiences have taken place there, though none quite so memorable as last weekend. To start at the … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Summer in Scotland

There are times when writing this blog feels beyond me. No matter how much I promise myself that I’ll start mid-afternoon on Thursday, it’s invariably 5.00 pm before I get going and then, on a normal Thursday, I’ll go for … Continue reading

More Galleries | 11 Comments

Flower appreciation

There is nothing quite so wonderful as one’s children’s success. I’m still glowing from Thursday’s evening’s The Flower Appreciation Society book launch. Dalston Eastern Curve Garden is a jewel, hidden away from busy Dalston Lane behind a high wooden palisade. … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Three launches

Next week I’m going to London for three separate and very different, but oddly related, launches. They all involve people I have close connections with and each in its own way brings with it the excitement of an impending birth. … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Publishing pains

Longstanding readers of A Few Kind Words will be familiar with the saga of The Artefact, the third in a series of young adult novels, with which I have been grappling for a number of years. To wind back a … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A vote for kindness

I posted last week from Northumberland on Thursday, election eve, unaware of what was going to happen the next day. By the time I left to drive home on Saturday morning, the political landscape in Scotland had changed beyond recognition. … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

In a bubble

Thursday. What a strange day. I am sequestered in a large country house on the Northumbrian moors with a group of Dark Angels. All here is peaceful. Daffodils fringe the lawn, rabbits nibble beneath the budding leaves of an old … Continue reading

More Galleries | 1 Comment

Death Café

On Monday evening Sarah and I went to a Death Café – which had nothing at all to do with salmonella sandwiches or arsenic-laced americanos. Rather it was a gathering of 20 or 30 strangers who had come together to … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Laugh or cry?

We are living in exceedingly strange times. Nine months ago Scots were being cajoled and entreated to remain in the Union. Today those same beseeching voices are demonising us as the hirsute hordes, poised to breach Hadrian’s Wall and wreak … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments