500 words a day

I recently read about a study rating the comparative intelligence of various breeds of dogs. Border collies came out on top, not unsurprisingly, and Labradors seemed to languish at the bottom.  This got me thinking about all of the dogs that I have known in my life and how they were quite dissimilar.  The earliest one that I can remember was Speck, some sort of mixed-breed hunting-type dog that we had when we lived in California. He was really my brother Peter's dog but as the youngest child, I was at home more of the day and got to spend much time with him.  Speck was an energetic pup and I clearly recall the time I asked my Mum if I could take him for a walk.  Suitably leashed up I was allowed to take him on a romp in the backyard. We decided to have one last race over the patio towards the back door.  Speck went one way around a pillar and I went the other. The resultant bump on my forehead was the size of an egg and do believe I was not able to walk him on my own again.  When

For the last several years I have joined in on the 52 Weeks 52 Ancestors writing prompts to get me to improve my writing in genealogy.  I will kill two birds with the proverbial stone and use it for today’s 500 words installment. This week’s prompt is to write about someone I would like to meet.  There have been many interesting characters that I have stumbled across in building my family tree: the great-grandfather who ran off with his niece and started a new life in Canada only to abandon his new family there;  the maiden great-aunt who spent a lifetime as a nurse in the first half of the twentieth century;  the great uncle, a career military man, who shows up on the 1911 census with a daughter born in America that nobody in our family knows about; or the great grandfather, a potter who fell off a tram and whose inquest paved the way for transportation safety?  All probably have more colourful tales to tell but I suppose, like most genealogists, the one I would like to meet is my b

Five hundred words. Five hundred steps. Five hundred pounds. Five hundred books.  This is how we measure things in life. Five hundred television channels and nothing to watch.  Five hundred hours that I will never get back. I’ve measured out my life in coffee spoons – thanks Prufrock. Fifty years ago it was a dashing young man who stole my heart and broke me forever. Kevin took my breath away the first time I met him in the Brahma Room at St Bernard College. I had gone in with my then-roommate Janice as we felt our way around the new experience of college life.  He came over and introduced himself and I always suspected he was after blonde Janice but I was smitten and somewhat tongue-tied.  A brief flirtation followed and my heart sank every time he seemed to land on someone else’s arm. For me there was intense chemistry that is strong today and never duplicated in my complicated life since then.  Spring that first year was glorious. I had moved on from Kevin to Benny the previous

I’ve spent the better part of the last 25 years researching my family history, looking into the lives of those who came before me.  I have my useless history degree (lol) and a passionate interest in anything before about 1930 (arbitrary date) but generally don’t think about myself much.  This time of the year, most people are busy making resolutions and looking forward and I while I don’t do much of the former I excel at the latter.  This time I think I will explore a bit of my earliest memory, at least as I think about it. I was born in 1954 in a post-war Britain that was looking forward. With a glamorous young Queen on the throne, I like to believe that my parents thought of themselves as a glamorous young couple ready to embrace this bold new world.  My dad was a aerospace engineer with DeHaviland’s and after his death I had a quick look through some of his papers which pointed to a young man dreaming of space and rockets and other worlds.  My mother always impresses me as a youn

In the time-honoured tradition of reflection at the turn of the year, I thought I would take a look back of te highs and lows of 2022. I took up this 500 words a day writing challenge after seeing a Twitter post and thought it might be what I needed to get me going.  It looks like the guy that started it, Jeff Goins ,  has moved off social media now and only does his work on substack which is a platform to consider if I want to get serious about writing. Anyway the plan is to write a minimum of 500 words each day for 31 days which should be enough to get habitual about writing. Anyway 2022 was our first post-pandemic year and while Covid is still with us it is a lot less scary.  Work at Lorn & Islands Hospital was a busy as ever but I find fewer of the students seem to be using our services.  As I like to remind everyone, I am the only NHS librarian in all of Highland.  Talks are starting to see about replacing the SLA with UHI and it could mean the transformation of library serv