Spring has sprung, the daffodils are daffodilling with a certain daffodilly panache, and sunlight is flooding abundantly in to your whole life, every day. No, I’m joking. Spring has just limped into view and apologised for the state of itself. If you are sad that you still have to wear thermal gloves to go outdoors […]
Books to Read in Wintertime
I often write about what a lovely escape books make from real life. They’re full of people saying suave things, courageously rescuing their families from shipwrecks, brawling bare-knuckled with furious lions, or simply embarking on extended consensual no-pants parties with inventive lovers. And that’s just great. But books can do other things too. When […]
New Year Feelings
So, New Year. Uuugh. Now that all the festivities are but dying embers… maybe you could think about cutting back on the doughnuts? Just kidding, this is a nice place. Come closer, I’ll ‘fess up: I hate Hogmanay. It’s such a high-maintenance celebration. Christmas lulls us into feeling safe and cosy. Pyjamas, overeating, gifts, hugs: […]
Be the Bear, and Other Mantras to Get You Through Winter
If you could hibernate through winter, would you? Find a nice cave, fill it with biscuits, put on a jumper, and sleep? Sleep lavishly. Slumber in an absolutely unreachable state. I know I would. I’ve written before about my annual sad feelings which always come around just in time for Christmas, and the things that […]
Mentorship, Writing Skillz, Finishing Things, and a New Short Story
As I’m sure 100% of people who have ever daringly put pen to paper, or… fingertips to keyboard… will know, writing is such a wild stab in the dark with a blunt wooden spoon. Objectivity is obviously impossible. You can guess, but never really know, if what you’ve written is good, or terrible, or if […]
The Friday Happy List – 30th October 2015
Hallo! It is Halloween! If you are planning to dress up as a slutty pumpkin, then please leave. If you are carving your lantern from a turnip (aye) and making a den in your living-room, wearing odd socks, leggings and a sequin-festooned jumper, then I wrote this Friday Happy List for you. (Can I come […]
‘Hardly a Season for Daylight’ – Why I Love Lanark by Alasdair Gray
I hated Glasgow for the first four years that I lived here. Before I moved, I’d been warned that it would rain interminably, but ‘the humour’ would make up for it. The city seemed to me (eighteen years old and fresh from the Highlands, as green as you get) just a big brawling mass without […]
Autumn is Better Than Summer
Summer. It’s such a lie. Grey drizzle prevails throughout June. The sun makes a cameo appearance one icy, blustery day in July, and everyone in Scotland takes off their clothes. We shiver stubbornly, on beaches and in parks, across hills and glens. We go swimming in lochs, and get out quickly and pretend that we’re […]
The Friday Happy List: 17th July 2015
Welcome! Because The World is Not All Terrible: Happy Friday Treat Yo Self For those who have not watched Parks and Recreation religiously (if not, what is the point of you?), this is what happens on 13th October every year, when the materialistic and magnificently shallow Donna and Tom just go all out shopping. Donna […]
Review: The Party Givers’ Book by Mary Gallati, 1957
I try to buy everything I need or want from charity shops. Because: 1. Through excessive charity-shop lingering, I’ve slowly become dependent upon shopping in a 1980s timewarp. Everything is sequinned and £5 is the average cost of a dress. When I venture into normal high-street shops, there are NEVER ENOUGH sequins and it’s all […]
Amy Jardine 