Category: Community
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Bells of joy . . .
It’s been a bit breezy these past few days, here in the GlenKens, so we’ve been enjoying the wind chimes rather a lot. Compared with our previous life high up on a fellside of the bleak and blustery North Pennines, of course, these southwest Scotland zephyrs are like balm to the resting soul. I managed…
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The weekly coffee morning . . . for men
Clearly, one needs to be of a certain age to be interested in getting together with a bunch of similar-aged gentlemen of a Monday morning to discuss a panoply of topics that might concern one or another of us. Being retired helps too, of course — busy working people would not be able to spare…
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The joy of a bound volume . . .
I seem to gravitate to prolonged projects: diaries; novels; long-running blogs; more novels; social histories; even a lengthening set of joys. My personal joy this morning is the completion of one project, and the anticipation of delving into another. The social history project that I devised, some 18 months ago, was to create a lasting, tangible set…
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Freeing the clocks . . .
Maybe it’s that time of life, the time when we all wonder how much we actually have left, or maybe it’s just a set of happy coincidences, or maybe it’s all part of my never-ending search for epiphanies, but for whatever reason, I am currently besotted with clocks. And the clocks that I’m [still] dealing…
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Cams, programs, switches and bongs . . .
For whatever reason, I’ve been identified locally as the guy who loves to fix things. Or let’s say rather, who loves to see things working correctly. I don’t mind work-arounds, not at all, but if the end result is that the thing is working and performing the function for which it was intended, I’m a happy guy.…
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The festive season begins . . .
The first Sunday in December is often, but not always, also the first Sunday in Advent, the start of the Christmas season. But I believe that December’s first Sunday is always the traditional ‘lights-up’ event here in New Galloway, which we shall experience this year for the first time. Villagers apparently gather at the Golf…
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Being part of a community
I had a little epiphany yesterday late afternoon, as darkness fell. As you walk down the road towards New Galloway’s Town Hall, you can see two clock faces, and they’ve been lit since the clock was repaired. Before that happy event, I was up in the tower helping to clear countless years worth of jackdaw…
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The encompassing comfort of family and friends . . .
In normal times, I guess, family and friends are just ‘there,’ part of our lives but busy with their own circumstances too. It’s when crises arise that our support network coalesces and keeps us going. I have been the focus of a crisis or two, as it happens, when my beloved might have collapsed under…
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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…
Roads to Joy 