There was a short detour to be made before booking into our restaurant-cum-hotel on the edge of Lochinver. Our aim was to pick chanterelles. In Scotland they are at their best in late summer and one September we had stumbled across a carpet of them growing in their favoured Eeyore environment - a damp mossy…
The West Lothian Bus Question
Joe Collier asks the West Lothian bus question: "Got any change?" It was late one Saturday evening and we were in an unfamiliar suburb of Edinburgh. At that time buses are rare. The next was due in around two minutes and had we missed it we would have had to wait for almost an hour.…
Don’t mention the …
When cycling near my cottage in Brittany my mind often conjures up images of German soldiers. In the Second World War there were many thousands stationed thereabouts. I see them in their ones and twos strutting along roads and across fields in their 1940s uniforms. No doubt these persistent images would have been seeded in…
In a manner of speaking
The minute I hear a voice on the phone I try to guess who is speaking. For close friends, just the briefest of sounds will be enough - so just the 'hell' of 'hello' - and getting it right gives me a real buzz. It is an odd pastime but in my case one born…
Après le déluge, moi
Our dinner together that Thursday was special. Not only was it my wife's birthday, albeit celebrated two days late, but we both had lived to share the occasion. Her actual birthday had been lost during a hectic and horrible 24 hours earlier in the week. We were still on our holiday in France. At around…
This orderly life
Some people are neat and tidy. So when my wife asks if I could bring her a blouse or some socks or whatever from her wardrobe, I know that I am about to be shamed. Everything on the shelves or in the drawers is laid out carefully, folded neatly and arranged logically. And the same…
Organ recitals
Concerns about illness are normal at my age. In fact, they are so everyday that symptoms are discussed by guests around the dinner table in the now customary 'organ recital' slot. Chronic symptoms are in some ways old friends. It is the new ones that raise alarms. Do they herald something sinister? Will they get…
Life in Venus
Some weeks ago my wife gave me a postcard. She had bought it after visiting our local museum of regional history and the picture was of a slim, young, nude, woman. She was made of terracota, was about 20 cms high and around two thousand years old. In keeping with her demeanor, the legend on…
Open letter to Mother Nature
Dear Mother Nature, I write to you as both a citizen of the world and an individual. As a citizen I offer you my sincerest apologies for the awful behaviour of human society at large. The way we are depleting the ozone layer, destroying forests worldwide, and squandering irreplaceable natural resources is deplorable. For over…
Seeing the wood for the trees
Dotted around Kew Gardens are some twenty 'tree sculptures’ by David Nash. They come in all sizes, and sit variously in the middle of lawns, between bushes, or almost hidden in the undergrowth. Just finding them is fun in itself. They are being displayed, as the organisers say, in a 'Natural Gallery' and it works…
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