Lockdown Day 17: Wednesday 8th April, 2020 I feel old recalling these times, caressing these long-frond memories with their tentacle temptations, traps and trials. I wonder what fuels these musings? Guilt? I thought it long-gone, passed with the death of Uncle Jack. Love? We may have loved yet never been in love, but we will […]
Tag: Vivien
finger ghosts stroke my spine and chill my soul
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 […]
wild nights and whisky
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 […]
new hair-dos and old hair don’ts
Lockdown Day 14: Sunday 5th April, 2020 First time we kissed, and I do mean kissed, not sloppy cheek peck kissing as Aunties do with barely-tolerated nieces and nephews, was at another family get-together. Everyone was crowded into grandma’s house. I was a 17 years young, mid-seventies hippy, lost and waiting to be found, sad […]
slipping on different rungs of Jacob’s ladder
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 […]
chastising storm
Lockdown Day 12: Friday 3rd April, 2020 Grandma is sitting in a large chair in the centre of the bay window, silhouetted by the matriarchal sun. The armchair dwarfs her. She was only ever five feet tall. And that was before she shrank with the passing of the years. Always a force of nature, though […]
because seven eight nine
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 […]
all passed in the blink of an eye
when mystic trees were barren
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, […]
fucking All Sorts
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 […]