Month: June 2023
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Songs of love cannot avoid loss
A good friend, after our concert yesterday afternoon, exclaimed that though the music was about love, it was also about loss. She was absolutely right, and I wonder if that commingled pair of emotions is what conspires in my head to elicit tears at a moment’s notice. The SongWave community performance choir is in full…
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Day-trip for the oldies . . .
This past Saturday we embarked on a little trip to a nearby National Trust for Scotland property. Well, we’d not quite clocked that Threave House and Gardens were an NTS premises, but we were delighted to be able, finally, to use our membership to enter. On the way in, we passed a russet-brown shrub with…
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The gentle rain from heaven
You wouldn’t know it from the concrete blocks of the patio, but the glass-topped table has a telltale reveal: rain fell last night. It does feel, as Portia opined in her famous ‘Quality of Mercy’ speech, as if the mercy that gives us a respite from this prolonged dry spell has come upon us unstrained,…
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A sense of accomplishment
I’ve often realised, as the creative writing sessions have accumulated, and I’m apprised of the errors littering my newest submission, that I have been too easily pleased. The creative writing community has a term for that: the bons mots are the writer’s ‘darlings’, and in order for the work to properly progress, they must be…
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The incredible, effulgent beauties . . .
On Friday, two days ago, at the end of the new-to-us garden, an incredible peony blossom opened. Earlier in the day we’d listened to a wonderful, beautiful song by Michael Marra, Happed in Mist, presented on BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast by Petroc Trelawney, which elicited a quick response of tears. The conflation of these beautiful…
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Sometimes, rarely, politics delights . . .
Whether it’s just a case of schadenfreude, or relief that a particularly excruciating period of politics is over, sometimes the demise of a charlatan is a good enough excuse to indulge in a bit of spontaneous joy. In one of our writing group tasks, this week, we’re charged to investigate the clerihew, so-called because of…
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The surprise of the old, informing the delight of the new
In 1883, James Faed the Younger presented a large painting titled ‘The Town Park’ to the Royal Burgh of New Galloway. This painting is stored with great care in the main hall, behind protective panels at the front of the large room. I’ve never seen it, but thanks to ArtUK we can consider it in…
Roads to Joy 