It's my birthday weekend, so here's a treat! I'm sharing my fortnightly email this week with anyone who wants to read it! If you like it, get more about connection, expat insights, and creative living resources by signing up here. I had two meals in a row this week that fed my soul, as well… Continue reading On Crossing Paths and Feeding the Soul
Tag: writing
Friendship on the Move: Transcending Time and Continents
November has been quiet around here because, after my first attempt two years ago, I'm again taking part in NaNoWriMo. (Let me know in the comments or on Facebook or Instagram if you want to know how I'm doing with that, writerly types.) But some exciting news has me thinking lots of thoughts that I… Continue reading Friendship on the Move: Transcending Time and Continents
Haggis, Tatties and Nae Selfies
Today, 25th January, is Burns Night, which, unlike St Andrew's Day, is celebrated just as much back home in Scotland as it is by the diaspora. Especially in the west and south-west, where I grew up. The first poems I learned to recite in primary school were Burns' poems, and it was at inter-school Burns… Continue reading Haggis, Tatties and Nae Selfies
A Year of Words and Work
I kept hearing about words as 2018 kicked off. There was the usual round-up of announcements by dictionary publishers and websites, telling us their most looked-up or supposedly definitive word of 2017. These include, if you're interested, youthquake, populism, complicit, feminism, and, my personal favourite, Milkshake Duck. On the less clickbaity side of things, some… Continue reading A Year of Words and Work
The Dream Job/No Job Conundrum
Sometimes it seems like I spend more time listening to people talking about writing than doing any writing. OK, full disclosure, over the past two months, I definitely have spent more time listening to people talking about writing than doing any writing. One of the podcasts I've found along the way is The Petal to… Continue reading The Dream Job/No Job Conundrum
Congo Sketch: The School Run at Walking Pace
It's another typically untypical morning in Congo, where no day ever goes quite as planned. Today, our driver isn't with us, as he had to take his child into hospital overnight with suspected malaria. So MT has taken the car to work with him, and I've hitched a lift with our neighbour to drop the… Continue reading Congo Sketch: The School Run at Walking Pace
I Miss Getting Lost
There was a time when I would frequently get lost. I could turn from my desk to my bookshelves to look something up, and find myself an hour later lost in the opening pages of a dozen well-loved novels. I could stay at my desk, having sat down to do half an hour of preparation,… Continue reading I Miss Getting Lost
A Frustrated Nester Fiction Nugget*
I promised a little while ago that if I got to 100 facebook page likes then I would publish a 'nugget' of fiction here on the blog. I wrote this flash fiction piece about 18 months ago, while I was at Circle of Missé. A goal this year is to maintain a steady stream of… Continue reading A Frustrated Nester Fiction Nugget*
What I Learned From My First NaNoWriMo
As the calendar foretold, December has arrived. For most of the past few years this has surprised me. Once upon a time December was an arrival. Nights drew in from the start of October, temperatures dropped, winter clothes came out and I would start to miss summer evenings despite myself. The journey through winter had… Continue reading What I Learned From My First NaNoWriMo
The Frustrated Nester – A User Guide
It's coming up for about a year since I started writing here (somewhat) regularly. At the time I didn't post any chatty 'here's me and here's why I'm here'-type post, because I couldn't do it without it becoming long-winded, and because it's really not very interesting, and because attempting it was becoming a barrier to writing… Continue reading The Frustrated Nester – A User Guide
The Frustrated Nester 