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My recent free-spree from social media had been going really well right up until yesterday when I tried to pat myself on the back for dealing with my Twitter addiction then realised I couldn’t because my hands were gripping my phone, facilitating my new addiction to YouTube. In my defence, can I bring your attention…
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Picture It
It’s my son’s nineteenth birthday today. We sat on the sofa last night as he opened presents, one of which was a book of routes up Scottish mountains, and he said he’d recently stood in Glasgow bus station and felt the west coast wind rush at him, willing him to get on the waiting bus…
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52and40/34 Passing Place
My nephew moved in with us a few months ago, all the way from a Pyrenean idyll in the south of France. It’s really interesting seeing someone discover Edinburgh, it reminds me of all the compromises we’ve made along the way as well as the rewards of the move. It’s also interesting living with a…
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52and40/26 Out of the Blue
My daughter tells me she learned at school there hasn’t been a May as dry as this in Scotland since before I was born in 1976. It seems we picked a lucky time for digging a new border in the garden and moving plants around to fill it up. It’s become habit, to go out between…
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52and40/22 Uprising
Our wee extension’s starting soon and early signs say the plants are keen on change this summer too. We’ve imposed new garden structure by getting rid of the decrepit shed, clearing the Krugeresque brambles and waving cheerio to 9m of mixed hedge which only ever managed to look tortured, despite optimistic pruning. A winter project which leaked into spring was a new boundary fence. With…
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52and40/14 Benediction
We saw Collateral Beauty. The film whisked me back ten years to a hell of a week. Mum had been admitted to hospital in Aberdeen with a DVT. My son had his sixth birthday party. I hadn’t organised a thing for Halloween. The morning after cobbled together trick or treating, Mum called from hospital and gently explained…
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52and40/13 Staging Interventions
I’m battling to feel Christmassy. The weather’s telling my senses it’s Autumn. The bagels in the cupboard and alarm clock scream that school’s still in. My diary’s saying it’s a few days before my annual crying at the song in The Polar Express which I love but will make the rest of the family roll their eyes…
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52and40/10 Air In Your Hair
I’ve never seen a Scottish Autumn and Winter as beautiful, so far, as what 2016’s given. The beauty in these seasons is going a long, gentle way to keeping breathing through the humanity shitstorm we’ve seen happen around the world this year. It’s easier to believe we’re not all doomed when nature’s on its best behaviour. As my…