De-blog

Dear Tinnitus, My constant companion: I love how you mix it up once in a while and change frequency, never content to be just an E that’s about twelve octaves above middle C, and when you added in that sub-bass, well! For a while you had me wondering what kind of lunatic learner pilot clocks up flying hours at four in the morning, but no. It was only you. Remember the days of twenty bell lyres knocking out ‘Scotland the Brave’ in an enclosed space? Of course you don’t; that was your gestation, and you’ve been composing your own harmonies since. Sometimes you almost drown out the birds, and on a late-spring late morning, that’s no bad thing. For this year, the days are done when the blackbird lures me from sleep with his sweet love song, which, incidentally, I only recently realised is reminiscent of Cinderella’s theme in Into The Woods . Clever chap, that Sondheim, seeing as blackbirds are not native to the USA. Perhaps he visited this fair isle and was inspired to capture the...

Be brave and grab your torches -  it's time for the Sparkly Badgers' Ghost Hunt! Find all the ghosts, collect all the letters and submit the spooky phrase to enter the prize draw and win sweets and books. Everyone who enters gets to choose a book prize but only one lucky hunter will go away with every eBook. Good luck and happy ghost hunting! For clues, visit the Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/373362076545635

I had a tough time at school - for lots of reasons, but the one that's relevant here is competitiveness, and not my own. By the time I figured out what the problem was, I was in my mid-twenties and studying for a degree. For brevity: I was fairly clever but shy, not good at sports, lousy at socialising, average height, average looking, an average musician - in general a bit of a wall flower. With adolescence, I put on weight, and that was so not  the attention I wanted to bring to myself. In fact, I didn't want attention at all. I just wanted to get on with being me, doing what I was good at, which is also what I enjoy: People watching. Writing. Reading. Listening to music. Discovering new things I'm good at. Thinking round corners. Being the best I can be. So, all those competitive team sports? Pure torture. Being ranked on exam results? Much the same. Eventually, I realised that my position relative to my peers was of no consequence. I knew  if I'd do...