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 […]
Tag: winter
This is All Good News
Winter is like a Jean-Luc Godard film: it’s painful and it feels like it’ll never end. Everyone is saying significant things in stilted, self-conscious ways and wearing stripy jumpers. There are naked people reading newspapers, and a car crash, and it all feels bit surreal, but also, really boring. Well that metaphor didn’t really hold […]
The Friday Happy List: 30th January 2015
If ever a Friday needed a Happy List, it’s Friday the 30th of January. One day I plan to gather all my mutinous feelings about this time of the year (acht, cursed, wretched January) into the introduction to the astonishingly brilliant, grammatically experimental, culturally significant and ludicrously handsome book that I will write. This will not […]
Islands and Books and Winter
In the winter of 2009, I spent four days in the dark windswept wilds of Shetland. Without any phone signal or internet, I was reduced to digging my book out of my bag. Luckily, that book was Lanark by Alistair Gray. It was just what was needed. It reminded me of the days when I […]
Hygge Will Get You Through This Winter
The long, dark nights are beginning. The Scottish winter demands effort and thoughtfulness, to get through it successfully to the other side. So I’ve been writing lists (‘make cookies. Wash clothes and self’) and making plans to go to the pub now and then. These things may seem small and lame. The lack of grandiose […]
John Donne, that Feisty Old Rascal
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that life was ever about lying flat out under the sun in a hot July. At these times, I heartily recommend eating and poetry. And eating poetry! (No, don’t). As a strategy for getting through the dark, you can’t really go wrong with eating and reading. I’ve been baking with the radio on and a […]
Amy Jardine 