No sooner have we celebrated the fact that we’ve all survived the end of the world as predicted by the Maya calendar (which, BTW, seems to have been a TOTAL misunderstanding as the Mayans mainly concluded one cycle of time would end on the 21 of December 2012 and be replaced by a new one) […]
Truth hurts, they say. And yet most of us will at some point or another stare our children in the eyes and tell them to always tell the truth. In actual fact, we don’t want to hear the truth – at least not always. When a small child backs away from its elderly relative, clasps
I spent Christmas away from home – very far away. On Christmas Eve, I lay awake most of the night listening to the hyenas scrabbling at the canvas of our tent. On Christmas Day, I lay just as awake, listening to the two lions that roared in chorus (or maybe they were roaring AT each
Man, mud and jeeps – a reflection on human perseverance Read More »
Is it only me, or are more and more of us living lives that balance on a cutting edge? So much to do, so many social media to keep up with, and so very little time … Of course, we have as much time now as people did fifty years ago, or a century ago.
Since man took his first shaky intellectual steps, we’ve been thinking about The Final Day. All religious beliefs contain some sort of Day of Reckoning, and implicit in this is the belief that Someday It Will All End. The Maya Indians believed that this would come to happen on December 21 of 2012. Okay, so
There are various rewards to writing, starting with the exotic experience of being sucked into a fantasy world of one’s own creation. I suspect all authors experience moments of such utter absorption everyday life becomes a fuzzy noise in the background, an inconsequential little irritant in an existence that is entirely focused on the story
Whenever I approach my house, I am overtaken by an urge to pee. I insert my key into the lock and have to twist my legs together – entirely ridiculous as quite often there should be no such need. Into the hallway, kick off shoes, dump my rucksack and after setting yet another new record
He’s always there. For thirty long years he’s been a constant presence in my life. When I need him he comes running, when I require comforting he holds me, when I just want to laugh out loud at something entirely ridiculous he will say the right thing. Yes, there are times when he drives me
It is five thirty on the Friday after pay day, and I’m stupid enough to be at IKEA with a shopping list long as my arm and droves of people equally equipped. Of course, the reason all of us are there at this same time is because our lists exceed our end-of-month wallets, and so,
In less than three months, we will have moved out of our house and into an apartment. (This is one of the consequences of falling in love w seventeenth century walls – if you buy a country home, you must economize elsewhere) Having lived in this particular house for over a decade, the attic is