Having a ruck

If a person from la droite critiques a person a partir de la gauche the criticism tends to take the form of accusations of anger, envy, jealousy, bitterness and lily livered vegetarianism. If a person a partir de la gauche critiques a person from la droite the critism tends to be in the form of … Read more

Coats

Today I wore my leather biker’s coat bought from the charity shop. It cost a tenner and reveals the state of my weight – if I’m doing okay the zipper goes up and I can breathe, if I’m ‘overladen’ the zipper sticks and it looks like I’ve been poured into a wet-look latex bondage suit. … Read more

2/1/2021

This morning I walked. The road was wet and I had on a pink sweater, a green hoodie and a blue anorak. I put the green and blue hoods up and walked. Down the hill, across the road onto a path thick with slippery leaves. I walked up hill and then it levelled off. It … Read more

Ode to 2020

One potato Two potato Three potato Four. I’m in Tier two so you can fuck off out the door. Five potato Six potato Seven potato Eight You’re in Tier 4 so you can fuck off out the gate. Nine potato Ten potato Eleven potato Twelve Whatever Tier you’re in we’ll have Christmas by ourselves One … Read more

From Hero to Eternity

I’m led by my nose. Smells entice me, disturb me but mostly comfort me. My father, a swaggering delinquent, wore ‘Eau de Cologne’. His slicked black Brylcreemed hair and the high notes of Bergamot lingering on his moustache. The bathroom towels, hospital property off the back of a lorry, held the scent for days but … Read more

Driving Ambition

When I was in my very early thirties I decided to learn to drive. My first instructor was a chauvinist pig. “That’s the trouble with women drivers” he would sigh, “If something drops on the floor they cant leave it alone. They have to bend down to pick it up, they stop concentrating and blah … Read more

You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden

The White House Rose Garden was established in 1913 by Ellen Louise Axson Wilson the wife of Woodrow Wilson. It was on the site of a previous ‘colonial’ garden established by First Lady Edith Roosevelt, those roses took a lot of tending and a good deal of horse shit. Then a rumour reached me that … Read more

Blowing in the Wind

8.15 and it’s dark. There are those who complain about shorter days and the onset of winter, but I like the sniff of autumn, and the crunch of curled leaves. Our cottage is designed to be cool in the summer and cosy in the winter, those damn peasants knew what they were doing building granite … Read more

Ode to Joy

Don’t we accumulate friends over a lifetime. A posse of like minded pals, or even unlikely chums that crop up year after year when their birthdays come round. January is lean for me, I do know about three folk with their birthdays in the bleak month. But I’m too overwhelmed by Christmas to remember them. … Read more

Ambling for the brambling.

When I left the cottage the rain was barely there, By the time I reached the field it was a proper summer shower warm and ‘Soft’ as they say in Ireland. I would like to be in Galway now, on the rough Atlantic coast, eating in smoke stained bars whilst the fiddlers play and the … Read more