The pair of pogo sticks

I like a page a day diary, mainly as it tends to function more as a notebook than a diary to me.  Often the page a day quota doesn’t work for the things I jot down, so I tend to write on any blank page I can find.  This drives my sister crazy, “how do Read More…

The lost – and last – blueberry crop

Peter Thompson is a soft fruit farmer in Blairgowrie.  Approximately 80% of his business is in blueberry production, with the remaining 20% in cherries.  This year Peter did not harvest his blueberry crop.  Spiraling costs and cheaper imports from Peru and South Africa meant that picking the crop would cost Peter far more money than Read More…

Spilt milk

There is no point crying over spilt milk.  A saying, that until last week I would have wholeheartedly agreed, with only one exception: breastmilk.  In my experience there are often several very good reasons to cry if you spill breastmilk. The first being the misery of having spent an hour pumping to get a measly Read More…

The Smiling Snowman

He was smiling still, the wooden snowman with the broken nose.  He wondered: if his nose hadn’t been knocked off, what would he smell?  He had some interesting companions in the pile he had recently joined. An old toilet; some pencil crayons – pink, orange, brown and blue; a VHS video tape (he remembered when Read More…

For the love of pisgetti!

I grimaced as Noah used his sleeve to wipe the tomato sauce off of his chin for the third time. “Yummm, I love pisgetti mummy! It’s my favourite you know.” “It’s tasty, isn’t it?” I replied smiling, “try to use the cloth rather than your sleeve to clean your face though bud OK?” I’m a Read More…

The box of lost treasure

  I wasn’t working last night. Or not at first.  Perhaps not at the end.  I was on a mission to find a small pouch or bag, perhaps the kind that you might be gifted jewellery or a small trinket in, or perhaps the kind that a Tooth Fairy might carry.  I had practised my Read More…

No wasted time and no time to waste

After an unexpected and unavoidable change to fieldwork plans, Anna and I decided to embark on a spontaneous adventure to track down the dismantled and rehomed parts of Fife’s Earthship. We have relatively few opportunity to spend a full day together doing fieldwork and were determined we would not let the time go to waste. Read More…