Lockdown Day 16: Tuesday 7th April, 2020 I hold the door open for Charlene as she wrestles herself and the baby out, then let myself into the surgery. There has been nothing done to this room since it was pensioned off and it has not aged well. The wrinkled blind is drawn, cataract illumination slipping […]

Lockdown Day 15: Monday 6th April, 2020 So I survey the faces in the winter’s light, those I recognise and those I don’t, five generations of blood-clan and marriage. In-laws and outlaws, introverts and extroverts, past, present and future. Clan MacAlba. A tired old joke used to say ‘there are three types of Scots: Edinbuggers […]

Lockdown Day 13: Saturday 4th April, 2020 A palpable tension stalks the room as it fills with saints and sinners slipping on different rungs of Jacob’s ladder. Auntie Vivien had not lived a conventional life, at least as far as some of her more traditional relatives were concerned. The Western Isles of Scotland, remnant havens […]

Lockdown Day 11: Thursday 2nd April, 2020 In the lounge, the grand piano stands rooted in its spot to the left of the bay window. As it has since the day it was wrestled up the stairs into the house. Gleaming. An awesome display of profligacy when bought in the Fifties. Deemed licentious dissolution and […]

Lockdown Day 9: Tuesday 31st March, 2020 We pull up outside the russet sandstone tenement. This is still an exclusive area despite the city’s decline, a peaceful, easy feeling of tree-lined avenues, parklands and immaculate tenements. The curtains are drawn in many windows as a mark of respect. For forty years Aunt Vivien lived here, […]

Lockdown Day 8: Monday 30th march 2020 As the sullen sun struggles to pierce gathering clouds once more, we muster behind the hearse to walk the half-mile or so to the cemetery. The cortege is heavily rugged up for the wan Scottish winter, dark heavy coats, long woollen scarves, shined thick-soled shoes. All except for […]

Lockdown Day 7: Sunday 29th March, 2020 I sit in the rear of the church, a fraying wicker seat at the end of my road to the aisles. The kirk is sparse, unadorned, a bare granite temple, typical Presbyterian gateway to the eternal dawn with a fire and brimstone gatekeeper. Some say Calvin was a […]