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09 Jan

Posted at 14:44h in Uncategorized by

The official photograph arrived in the post recently – University of Aberdeen, 2023. Got me thinking. I spent an hour this morning looking for the photo from 1975, the formal one that had hung on my mother’s sitting room wall for all the years till she died in 2017. It moved house when she did, each time taking up its position alongside an official portrait of my sister when she qualified as a nurse. There I was, newly 22 years old, newly graduated, an expression of relative innocence on a face recovered from the tyranny of teenage and, as yet, unblemished...

05 Dec

Posted at 12:05h in Uncategorized by

It was a Wednesday afternoon in late November. 13° - unusually mild for Aberdeen at this time of year but overcast since the sun shuffled off after a brief appearance in the morning. The city sparkles in the sun, earning its sobriquet, the Silver City. But it defaults to grey when the skies cloud over, its glorious granite turning sombre and oozing coolth. We’d walked out to Old Aberdeen in the morning, taking in the cobbled streets and quiet splendour of Kings College, the stone crown set over the chapel. Out front, Bishop Elphinstone in his tomb, his effigy on...

09 Aug

Posted at 15:01h in Uncategorized by

It would be remiss not to write about the spirit of Islay, a spirit that flows through the community and bids you a warm welcome - at anything from 40-65% proof. Islay is the spiritual home of peaty malt whisky. But, I sense from someone who lives here, that the Islay folk, perhaps now diluted with incomers, prefer their spirit blended. I suppose it’s a class thing, too: if the golden liquid is your poison then the cheapest route to oblivion is Grants, Bells or Teachers, a wee half bottle from the Co-op for a few quid and all your...

07 Aug

Posted at 09:08h in Uncategorized by

Beyond the lighthouse at the end of Kilnaughton Beach and a short walk north from there is another beach, locally known as the Singing Sands. I walked there this morning with a flask of coffee and a notebook, pausing first to wonder at the sculpted beauty of Kilnaughton at low tide. As I reach its western end, a heron is fishing for some elevenses in the rocky pools by the shore. Completely still and watching intently, its long neck is stiff, its head tilted down. When it spots its prey, it lowers its head, curling its neck into an extravagant C-shape...