We used to travel over to Aberdeen every month for IVF treatment. It was at the drop of a hat. Downing work tools. Heading off in the car. One of those days was an 11 th  November and we pulled into a layby and sat silently for two minutes while the ‘Last Post’ sounded over the radio. It was in the days before mobile phones and sat-navs. No pictures of fields of poppies to look at.   Many years later, when poetry became my passion, I wrote these words-   Homeward Bound     I

I have not trawled the BBC and other websites for suitable content for RE classes since I retired. I was always on the lookout then, but...

I would have won the jackpot on ‘Pointless’ the other day. The questions were about fantasy or graphic novels. One of the options was to...

I thought when I enrolled to do a creative writing degree with UHI it would be creative writing – what it says on the tin. I did not know...

I have been reading Natalie Goldberg’s ‘Writing Down the Bones’. I picked up the book in a secondhand bookshop and have dipped into it...

How reliable are our memories? I have absolutely no trouble believing that most of us would pass a polygraph test when it comes to...

There was a need to go into town yesterday although |I didn’t really want to. There was a lemon to buy and a bag of self-raising flour....

We both write letters, Niall and I   Mine are to my sister, mostly, His are to the seabed.   I use proper envelopes, the ones that are...

My husband and I are just back from a London theatre trip to see Les Miserables. We don’t really do spontaneous, but this came close....

It has been a year since I began my subscription with Pot-Gang, a grow your own vegetables in pots project. Each month I receive a box...

There are new neighbours who have moved into the house at the end of the terrace. I say moved in but I don’t think they have moved in as...

I’m not sure I want to walk down this path for a second time this day, but I was asked to by a friend. There was a line in a song we sang...

The second Saturday of the month sees us down at the Bike Shed with the creative writing workshop. I had given over the leading to two of...

February. The second week in and Valentine’s Day draws near. Who wouldn’t want to write something about love? Creative writing at the...

The sky outside has darkened.  Through the bars of the cell the pinpricks of the stars grow stronger.  The air is warm and moist.  The...

You have probably not heard about this before as it is something my husband came up with – ‘Baddy Shooting School’. We are currently...

We presume to know what words mean and we don’t know enough Latin to pull words apart, dig out a definition and then to put them back...

I shouldn’t have been there on Saturday. A cancelled flight meant that a trip down south for a birthday party did not happen. I thought I...

It was that day again, that creative writing workshop day. I always intend to get myself sorted and not leave things until the last...

Last week, my friends at ‘Creativity in Care’ and their friends they had met and worked with over the last few months, perhaps even...