Ideas

cluck cluck, chirp chirp

It’s hard not to be happy when your life is dominated  by funny dogs, friendly (productive) hens and  beautiful chick maidens. This morning, first thing, I brought in the washing (2 huge bedspreads from St Leonard’s Bank) which had been blown hard all night under the canopy of the massive sycamore tree. I love this [...]

Confessions of a coke addict

Last Christmas I bought myself an 80 megabyte iPod. This was a bit of a cheat considering it cost more than the presents I got for my loved ones, but I bought it through the company and justified it that way. Although iPods look amazing they are a pain in the butt because in order [...]

One Week in Scotland

Sometime in June we realised that we might find, could spare, did have and would like one week to spend in Scotland. Drive north through Spain, take a ferry to England, drive north again. One frantic week filling the van with our wish-list of things we ‘need’ in Portugal. A big party, catch up with [...]

March to May

This could go on forever, but we all need to keep busy and sane, hence the rule: one paragraph per topic. 1.TIME UNDER THE BRIDGE. It was March and now it’s May. Last day of May and then it’s June. How can this be happening? Each day used to be bright and interesting, each day [...]

Seminars suck

I am sitting in a Ministry of Culture seminar about film making and it has all the hallmarks of a rotten event: a huge queue at the registry desk (but nobody saying hello), nowhere for coats, coffee servers arguing among themselves, an electrical fault that the secretary of state loudly complains about, doors that squeak [...]

Six Degrees of Dread

By Monica A BBC headline this morning declared that “Global Warming is ‘Irreversible’”. Another added that “Emperor Penguins Face Extinction”. A lot was written about our many woes (oil and money, food prices, storms, refugees, wars)… It was surreal to see this unfold, lifted straight out of the very pages I’ve been reading – Mark [...]

Today is Obama Day

Returning to The Hovel after a short relapse at Mamage Mansion (aka The Laundry House), where the electricity works and the water is hot for a bath, is fridge shivery, about as cold as iced yoghurt. Outside the snow lies thin and crisp and the wind cuts slices out of my face. Inside the fire [...]

Give pensioners something meaningful to do before they die

I’m in a complete depression about Gordon Brown giving the OK for a third runway for Heathrow Airport. If this government doesn’t have an election soon and get voted out, what are we to do? I would gladly riot but how to organise it? Even if we do get a new government, how can we [...]

What could I possibly write about?

By Alina Wolfe Murray in Bucharest. 6th January 2009 I look at the empty page, empty-minded. What could I possibly write about? I didn’t see anything spectacular today. It’s cold but the diesel didn’t freeze in my car, like it did three years ago.  So it cannot be that cold. It didn’t snow, so there [...]

Writing on the fly

We’re about to get in a taxi and go to the airport where we will board a Lufthansa plane, change in Frankfurt, and tonight we’ll be in Scotland.  Meanwhile, from another corner of Europe is coming another contingent of Wolfe Murray’s — Moona’s mob — but they’re journey is complicated compared to ours: Moona is [...]

A train in Europe

It’s Christmas time and I want to visit my family.  They live in Scotland, me in Portugal.  Having learned about the major impacts of air travel to greenhouse gas emissions and the subsequent increase in global warming, I realised that we should do our best not to fly, but to go by land.  There are [...]

Monday was a day off

Monday was a day off, no school, no work, all out of the blue (no school memo). Ecstatic of course, we celebrated with another day trip. We are becoming experts in this. The key is not to plan much (which suits us just fine). Instead, we just go, usually to that ever-gripping place called “somewhere”. [...]