This is my last in my series of ‘buy nothing new’ blogs, although as you will discover, it’s not the end of my ‘buying nothing new’! 12 months ago I decided
I can’t remember a bad Christmas from when we were kids. My dad loves Christmas: an over-abundance of decorations food and gifts; games, TV and friends. He’s always been a
I am privileged to know a lot of creative people: writers, artists, musicians and makers of all sorts. My belief is that we are fundamentally creative beings, and predominantly
The Edinburgh International Book Festival is a lively and eclectic mix of books and people. All sorts of people; all sorts of books. I was fortunate to be able to
I was raised on the ‘protestant work ethic’, even though my dad was a Catholic. To be fair, he championed work and play in equal measure. A union man and
The trip north from Wales, via the M5 and M6, was never going to be hassle-free, or take the allotted time of 4 hours. After checking the traffic and
Devon to South Wales Further south and west for our next stop, passing by friends in Dorset, and heading to Devon for lunch with a couple we hadn’t seen
The most direct route to our next destination, in Buckinghamshire, was the A1M, a road I loathe with a passion, so instead we headed for the M1. Not much better,
Our trip around the UK was ambitious. We had already decided to cut out London and the South East due to time constraints, disappointing a few friends along the way,
Today there was poetry in the afternoon, instead of tea. The instigator of the Poetry in Motion group, Clio Gray (author and library assistant at Tain library), read from Gerald