Snow over Scotland
Every childhood winter was spent in a frenzy of longing for snow to fall. Granny said that it would snow if the clouds were tea-coloured.
Snow Mania
A few memories linger from that winter. The first tiny, tiny flakes of snow that fell tentatively from a heavy sky, then thronged in a graceful dance, and finally cascaded down relentlessly.
Autumn Winds
October: time of change in the northern regions, pivot towards winter. Clocks fall back; a sudden, darker onset of evening. And wind.
Winter in Ullapool
Ullapool is a small settlement on Loch Broom in the north western highlands of Scotland. A fishing port and the largest town in the district, it has a current population of around 1500, which has slowly increased over the last thirty years.
The Joys of Cleaning the House
There must be some irony in this title, surely? It is an activity perfectly designed for procrastination. I’ll do it tomorrow, or sometime later this week.
Joys of Cleaning
Contemplating the emotions and sensations around our normal reluctance to get going on cleaning the house, brought up some memories of my time as a professional cleaner. Short as it was, there were lasting lessons.
I first read this book around 1977. Then again in 2018. And once again in 2025. On this last re-reading, I was surprised by how the book seemed so fresh, as if I were encountering it for the first time. This perception might merely be related to declining memory retention, but what does persist and is re-encountered, is a sense of the book’s atmosphere. This is constructed from the author’s manifest sincerity, his ability to patiently instruct Western readers in Indian yogic tradition, and from a gentle humour that infuses the text.