Now is the time I would find an image of two fingers useful, but you can remain calm, I am not going to look for one. Hold the image in your mind however, for I am becoming increasingly fed up with all bleak foreboding on the news and in the press. The labour party is falling apart at the seams, Robin Harper is retiring, package holidaymakers are indeed having the time from hell and the pound does not go as far as it did last week - and yet we are all still here. The sun does shine and plans are being made for Festivals to come. This weekend sees the Folk Festival in full throat, Keith Ingham's exhibition has been very favourably reviewed in the Scotsman and Elisabet rarely sees the light odf day as preparations are made for Traces of Light. Tickets for the Linlithgow Book Festival, which does not happen until 31st of October to 2nd November, are selling well already, with the Christopher Brookmyre event all but sold out.
I think it is time to take a deep breath and stand back from the chaos a little. Things are not good, but there is a great deal that is going well - and, if we work at it, we can make a whole lot a great deal better. That is how I see it anyway, and I refuse to think otherwise.
Gail
Linlithgow, or rather we who live here, will sometime in the not too distant future have access to allotments. A society has formed and an application is on its way to the Council, who may provide a bit of land. Well done! all the folks who have worked hard to get it off the ground! I roped in friend and went along to join up. We have both done more than our fair share of meetings and are slightly jaded when it come to the points - points of rules, points of interest, points of order, points of procedure and finer points. We do acknowledge that that is not a sentiment shared by everybody, and that some meetings can resemble marathons, where everybody but everybody has to air all the buts and ifs. And there are always reasons not to do anything at all. I am forever reminded of a Chinese proverb someone slapped me on the back with when I was dithering "A man can stand on a hillside with his mouth open for a long, long time ... before a roast duck will fly into it." Because there is nothing easier than doing nothing, thus restricting any action and killing initiative.
Someone will inevitably stumble on their pitchfork, get mud on their finest boots, the bees will surely sting someone and the poultry may - but should not - escape and peck on the agapanthus seedlings. To be sure. But most people still die in their beds, and one still meets and awful lot of people regretting more the things they didn't do than the things they did. So get on with it take a risk, say what you think and treasure life!
Elisabet
Someone will inevitably stumble on their pitchfork, get mud on their finest boots, the bees will surely sting someone and the poultry may - but should not - escape and peck on the agapanthus seedlings. To be sure. But most people still die in their beds, and one still meets and awful lot of people regretting more the things they didn't do than the things they did. So get on with it take a risk, say what you think and treasure life!
Elisabet
