Category: Social Life
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Informality, with riffs
We experienced the sort of Burns Night supper last night that combined the best of the tradition, yet in a kind of evolved, almost deconstructed way. A spontaneous, last-minute invitation was a welcome joy, and could we help with the preparation? We’d done a few formal Burns Night suppers in our time, hosting a crowd…
Larry Winger
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Theatrical delights
We realised this morning that we haven’t been to a live theatre show for years and years, pre-Covid actually, and possibly for a year before that. So our birthday treats, tickets to the intriguing comedy Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), had been eagerly anticipated since September. Every expectation was met! I’d made a few preparations…
Larry Winger
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Thoughts on generational change
We were chatting with our daughter yesterday, exclaiming over a new development in the Northumbrian village we’ve called home for the past thirty years. It seems that since the pandemic, property prices have skyrocketed in Allendale, as urban dwellers seek a bolthole in a rural idyll. What we hadn’t appreciated, and what our daughter thought…
Larry Winger
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The joy of fiction . . .
Lately I’ve been exploring adding elements of fiction into what might otherwise be rather prosaic memoir. I used to think this approach to understanding life was a sacrilege, a bowdlerisation of truth. I’m not that puristic anymore. Sometimes, for example, conflation of two different episodes, which didn’t actually happen in the time sequence portrayed, can…
Larry Winger
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A clear perspective . . .
Until I’m disabused, or have done some more reconnoitring with my handy compass app behind the New Galloway Golf Club, as we sit on the elegant slab bench looking over the Glenkens, I shall understand that on a clear day we’re seeing the Galloway Hills. My interrogation of Google has thrown up some interesting perspectives;…
Larry Winger
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’emerging’
The word ’emerging’ is one of my favourites. Perhaps because it always makes me hark back to our music promotion days, when the delightful Emerging Music agency, run by Ken and Sue Bradburn, provided us with a never-ending stream of artistes to entertain at Allendale Village Hall. There’s such a lot of potential in that…
Larry Winger
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The joy of listening
I try to be a good listener, but sometimes I’m too quick to jump into the conversational flow. I’ve always understood that a writer needs to listen, first, and explore the dynamic of what’s going around them. If, however, I get too excited, caught up in the topic, I might bluster away on a rant,…
Larry Winger
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Long-distance dining
Even without being looked for, sometimes joy just falls out of nowhere and you have to exclaim, ‘Well, I never!’ It was that way yesterday evening as mother and daughter shared a recipe and ingredients to make a deconstructed fish and chips Friday evening dinner. I’d been enjoying the friendly cooking comparisons, from one corner…
Larry Winger
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The joy of learning new things
You can teach an old dog new tricks, you can! At least, I hope to learn some new techniques later this morning, when I venture over to the Men’s Shed to try to finesse a couple of pine shelves that will supplement our bookcase. The pine planks are fine, but the other shelves in the…
Larry Winger
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The ‘gate dance’
It’s a delight this morning to serve this lovely observation by neighbour George Welton: “It was fortunate that my dear neighbour drove up behind me just as I opened the gate at the bottom of the half-mile track up to our fellside home. The gates are kept closed this time of the year to ensure…
Larry Winger
Roads to Joy 