My Small Boat

There are some knightly souls who even go so far as to make their visits to bookshops a kind of chivalrous errantry at large. They go in not because they need any certain volume, but because they feel that there may be some book that needs them. Some wistful, little forgotten sheaf of loveliness, long [...]

The New House
Now first, as I shut the door,
I was alone
In the new house; and the wind
Began to moan.
Old at once was the house,
And I was old;
My ears were teased with the dread
Of what was foretold,
Nights of storm, days of mist, without end;
Sad days when the sun
Shone in vain: old griefs and griefs
Not yet begun.
All [...]

Tact is to lie about others as you would have them lie about you.

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Trainers All Turn Grey
(after Robert Frost’s ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’)
You buy your trainers new.
They cost a bob or two.
At first they’re clean and white,
The laces thick and tight.
Then they must touch the ground -
(You have to walk around).
You learn to your dismay
Trainers all turn grey.

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.