My family are from Scotland, so we like to celebrate the birthday of Robbie Burns on this day. Some people turn their noses up at haggis but most of them haven't tasted it. Haggis, tatties and neeps, I love 'em. Washed down with whisky. So as I have the bottle of 10 year old Jura which I won in a wee competition, we'll be having a good night  tonight. Slàinte!

I've always made a big effort not to give away my age on this site (and others), not because I'm ashamed of it at all, but because I'm afraid that some people will make assumptions about me if they know I'm **.  Okay, not you people, but some people. And I appreciate that the things I write about and sometimes my comments on others' writing will have given it away anyway.

 

Well, yesterday I received an invitation to a school reunion and I'm going to tell you straight - it's…

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We watched David Lean's "The Passionate Friends" last night on DVD. It's a bit like "Brief Encounter" but with more beautiful scenery - the mountains of Switzerland rather than an English railway station. The very lovely Trevor Howard plays the hero/would-be lover in both, and Claude Rains is 100% believable as the super-wealthy banker husband.  I absolutely loved it, demonstrated by the fact that I didn't fall asleep! And I reckon that the producers of "Mad Men" got a few ideas from it, or… Continue

The floods in Queensland appal me, the more so as I have friends there. But there's also a bit of me that's fascinated. I've noticed this before - the little almost-thrill about dramatic events. It's hard to admit to this, makes me sound as if I'm enjoying, even revelling in other people's tragedy. Believe me, no way to I wish difficulties, far less tragedy, on anyone. I would like people to live in peace and harmony, so what is this dangerous little gremlin in me?

The Christmas "holiday" gets extended through New Year, and, for me and my husband, by an annual singing weekend away. We go to an Elizabethan manor house which nestles under the Quantock Hills in Somerset and sing a glorious range of music with a huge group of friends. The actual singing is not so glorious at 11 o'oclock at night in the bar, but there are no neighbours to be offended!

 

Well, it's over now - today I must go for a check-up at the dentist and I don't think I can…

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We watched David Lean's (adaptation of Charles Dickens' ) "Great Expectations" over the holidays. Memories unfurled. Magwitch's leap at the young Pip in the cemetery was just as I remembered it from so long ago, though Miss Haversham had been enhanced in my memory and looked faintly silly in her cobwebs. The grown Pip tearing down the blinds to let the light in for Estella, to the strains of soaring strings, was thrilling though.  And other joys - Pip running home across the marshes, shot in…

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How to start to shift the post-Christmas podge in my body and the sludge in my brain? The latest exercise craze is Zumba - South American dance-based exercise. So off I went on Tuesday night, in the cold rain through unsignposted streets, and failed to find the school where the class was being held. So, home to check the details, but when I did find it I nearly turned right back, because I could see these lithe young women pumping away in rows... I had promised myself, so I did it, though it…

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