The great Edinburgh International Festival is almost upon us again. Time to pour over those brochures and raid the piggy bank. Being within hailing distance of everything, we natives can get a bit blasé about events that other folk travel half way round the world to attend, but this year I booked a few performances [...]
Atul Gawande is a gifted surgeon and best selling author. No ordinary man, you might think. And yet, in his book, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, he concludes that his place in the world, like everyone else’s, is inevitably small. Compared with the people who plan and execute the eradication of polio from southern [...]
Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Heard of him? Hmmm. Well, the name will elicit a groan from many a Scot who’s been forced to study his writings during their formative years. But growing up 500 miles away I had no knowledge of either the books or the author in my youth. Shame! Shame! I hear you cry. [...]
A friend of mine (now in her nineties) used to regularly cook drop scones (alias griddle pancakes) for our charity table at church. But sadly now the task is beyond her. Last week I visited her at home and to my astonishment, she handed me her precious griddle and her secret recipe. I told her [...]
Another ten hours on trains, plus extra time on stations waiting for connections … another opportunity to read uninterrupted … what to take …? Ahhah! One of those books that seems to permanently slip down the to-be-read pile. A (Mann) Booker Prize winner. Sigh. Yep, I do try, but I often struggle with these big [...]
Wahey, Remember Remember is now officially launched – a mere three months after publication date. Last week, as I wrote my blog, you may remember, I was cooking wee delicacies for the nibbles (the very ones pictured below), and juggling several other competing demands (humdrum domestic as well as professional ones), wondering if I’d ever [...]
In the course of moving things about to accommodate several groups of guests, I’ve become aware of a number of largish objects which are cluttering up space in our house without too much in the way of useful returns. One is an exercise machine. It was bought at the time I started the sedentary life [...]
Wahey! I’ve just had a brand new experience. I’ve been up in Dundee at the teaching hospital, presenting prizes to medical students who participated in a creative writing competition. Me … awarding prizes! How grown-up is that?! Actually it was a particular pleasure, because the subject for the competition was ‘Ethics and Humanistic Values’- a [...]
I do a fair amount of travelling by train nowadays, and it’s safe to say Birmingham New Street station is one of my least favourite haunts. Not only is it fearfully busy, but platforms aren’t revealed until close to leaving time, and literally-last-minute alterations occur with alarming frequency. Me, I like to be ready and [...]