Category: Opinion

• June 21, 2020

  Social Media, The Solstice and The Sea

  These weeks in lockdown have seemed to slip away so quickly, each day passing to the next with a speed strangely at odds with the stretching hours of sunlight. Before we knew it, the summer solstice was upon us, a tipping point in the balance of light and dark, where the world gives the night a…
• June 7, 2020

  We’re Not Aloof, We’re Introverts

  Years ago, when I had a ‘proper’ job, I was a participant in a set of development centre activities for graduates. It was standard development centre stuff, including participation in group activities and receiving feedback on performance by an assigned observer who monitored the tasks. In one such exercise, I was observed in a team…
• May 31, 2020

  Hibernation Diaries – Small Steps Back Into The World

  In a crisis, we find out who we are. I heard these words on TV the other day as we completed our tenth week of ‘hibernation,’ a milestone that saw Scotland ease lockdown rules to enable people to meet with others outside their household. The new rules have a distinctly outdoor focus, enabling family reunions…
• February 20, 2020

  On Big Ideas and Creating a Community of Kindness

  It might surprise you to know that our household does not possess a dishwasher. About a year ago, our dishwasher broke, and we decided to find out whether we could get along without it for a while. Granted, there was also an element of laziness involved – ‘finding out whether we could get along without…
• January 9, 2020

  2020 – The Stories Hearts Tell

  Hello, and happy 2020……! The sun has risen on a new decade, and as usual January brings with it a sense of expectation. Resolutions, plans for diet and lifestyle, pressure to overhaul just about everything in our lives. I don’t really go in for New Year resolutions, preferring instead to set goals throughout the year…
• December 5, 2019

  The Case for a Simpler Christmas

  When I look back on my memories of Christmas as a child, they are vague and happy. The opening of the living room door in the half-light and small cries of ‘Santa’s been!’ Trying to stay awake in the hopes of glimpsing red fabric or a boot topped with snowy white dusting. Paper party hats,…
• March 8, 2019

  The Stories We Tell Ourselves – International Women’s Day

  Lately I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the stories we tell ourselves. Like many women, I’ve spent a lot of time telling myself about all the things I cannot do. I’m not good at this, I’m not good at that, I can’t run, I could never write a novel. I could never be a mathematician. (A…
• September 15, 2016

  So, What Do You Do All Day, Anyway?

  Not long ago, I was asked by a virtual stranger (in the context of being a stay-at-home mum), what I liked to do when I wasn’t ‘sitting around the house all day’. Annoyingly, my reaction was to laugh awkwardly (I have always been one of those people who thinks of smart or funny retorts long…