Category: Quotes

Walking. In rush hour traffic…

Live & Learn43 Comments

It’s been 2,149 consecutive (well, almost) days on this morning walk at The Cove. Like in a row.

The highlight of the morning were the Atlantic Brants. The photo time stamp on the shot above was 6:47 am, just minutes before the Sun’s lift-off. There is nothing like the sound of the battalion’s wing flaps and their distinctive call (you really must listen here). Watching them just feet above the water, I couldn’t help but think: “You look marvelous! Absolutely marvelous!“

I stood on the break wall watching the sunrise.

Momentarily at peace.

And then it was The Cove’s rush hour traffic. A new phenomenon. DK’s groupies. 5 years ago, you wouldn’t find a soul at this park at this hour, now I’m mobbed.

Susan’s to my left snapping at the sun (without our Wally, who was left behind at home — the horror!) She’s slinging two cameras over her shoulder, yes, two. (Note to Self – Susan to Dave in 2023: “You always have to take things to the extreme, do you really need two cameras?” Elephant never forgets.)

Cara’s next to Susan, sporting designer Tall Boots akin to a rider in a Dressage event. She’s criss-crossing back and forth, violently snapping at everything that moves. Oh the young-uns, they do everything with such flourish.

Then came the rest: the walkers, the dog walkers and the runners.

I pack my gear and head back.

Look at you DK — The Pied Piper of The Cove.

God, I miss the good ole’ days.

Notes: Shots from this morning’s walk can be found here.

Monday Morning Wake-up Call

Live & Learn37 Comments

Hello Peeps. Wally here. It rained all night tapping on the hood of Dad’s car. And I freaked when I found dad still in bed with me at 7:30 am.

“You sick Dad? I hope not.”

“No Wally … just Retired.”

I don’t like rain at all but love Retirement Dad.

Happy Monday!

Inspired by:

Don’t run any more. Quiet. How softly it rains On the roofs of the city. How perfect All things are. Now, for the two of you Waking up in a royal bed by a garret window.

— Czesław Miłosz, from “After Paradise” in “New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 (Ecco, 2001)

‘he wasn’t all there…’

Live & Learn18 Comments

Uncle Arch…We drove past the front door pretty much every time we visited Dad’s parents but we only went inside on one occasion. My sole memory is that one wall of the living room was unrendered and that the place had an air of profound sadness, though the latter may have been my own projection. He never came to Christmas lunch at our house with his brother and sister-in-law. I can only assume he wasn’t invited. In our entire lives Fiona and I saw him a handful of times at most, during that single visit and at a couple of family funerals and weddings. He seemed placid and slow and a little scruffy, but otherwise not greatly different from many other guests. He never married, never had children. I don’t think he worked. Later when I asked Mum about him she said, ‘He wasn’t all there,’ and refused to elaborate so that I have no idea whether he had some kind of learning difficulty or whether he was heavily medicated for a psychiatric illness, but he lived independently into his sixties so whatever difficulties he faced were not insuperable ones. I’ve since worked with many people like Uncle Arch, the kind of people we pass all too easily in the street, forgetting that they have stories and experiences and interior lives of as much value as our own but who get pushed to the edge of society, who are excluded from family events because they’re seen as shameful, because their personal hygiene isn’t perfect, because they might behave inappropriately, because we don’t know how to behave in their presence. I can’t think about Uncle Arch without thinking of how completely and how effectively he was written out of our lives, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I never once looked around the table at Christmas lunch and thought about him sitting eating his Christmas lunch alone four miles away.

— Mark Haddon, Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour (Doubleday, February 17, 2026)

Notes:

I burst into tears. Love is hell.

Live & Learn17 Comments


Tonight I see what looks to be a tick on the dog’s eyelid. I get a pair of tweezers from the bathroom and kneel to remove it. He looks at me askance but lies there in beatific patience. I smooth the fine yellow fur on his head, apply the tweezers to the tick, and clamp down. But it is not a tick—just a little black growth above his eye. A stream of blood trickles down his snout, and he doesn’t flinch. I gasp. He leans forward and licks my hand, to forgive me for hurting him, with blood in his fur. I burst into tears. Love is hell.

— Daniel Poppick, “The Copywriter: A Novel” (Scribner, February 3, 2026)

Notes:

  • Book: I Loved it. Not recommended / Cautiously recommended.
  • NY Times Book Review of “The Copywriter” here. Notable quote from review: “It’s simultaneously a quotidian task — it’s just another copywriting assignment — and also a monumental moral decision. In action, it may seem like a small choice, but in a vast and ugly universe, sometimes small choices are all we have.”

Puffins…

Live & Learn21 Comments

It’s not always the obvious that is the source of danger for the birds. On Craigleith, famous for its puffin colony of ten thousand breeding pairs, the population of what is undeniably the cutest and most comedic of all seabirds fell in a few short years by 90 per cent because of tree mallows, giant invasive plants whose roots make it impossible for the birds to dig the burrows where they incubate their eggs and raise their young. Ever since the calamitous fall in numbers, volunteers have been working to eradicate the mallows. In spite of the efforts of more than a thousand supporters of the puffins, the mallows persist, though their numbers have been reduced sufficiently to allow the puffins to start rebuilding their colonies. They’re a welcome sight; it would be a hard heart that didn’t feel a rise in its spirit at the sight of a puffin.

— Val McDermid, Winter: The Story of a Season (Atlantic Monthly Press, December 30, 2025)

Notes: