Reflections

Stampfl-ing all over it

March 26, 2012

The first couple of runs while jetlagged are all kinds of uncomfortable. My body cries out. My chest feels like it is going to explode. My feet feel heavy and my throat burns. No matter how in shape I am, those first couple of runs just don’t feel good. But, after two or three days [...]

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Kindness of strangers

March 19, 2012

Please be kind. It seems a little glib sometimes to say something like that. But kindness is not about being sweet and saccarine. It can be about a more basic level of humanity. It can be about recognising the humanity of the person next to you. I’m sitting in heathrow waiting for the first of [...]

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A less than Saintly transition

March 17, 2012

There’s no overland to oz post this week, because today I begin another journey to oz (by faster but less exciting means). As the east coast train ambles through the countryside of fife toward edinburgh and beyond, it seems appropriate to begin to reflect on my journey and life in Scotland. It is 2 years, [...]

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Reflections on leaving the cottage-by-the-sea

March 16, 2012

I went for a slow, ambling walk around St Andrews last night. It was the first time I really gave much thought about the fact that my time in the cottage-by-the-sea is at an end. What a home it has been. Last night was the first night I’ve been in St Andrews in almost two [...]

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I am a heretic

March 14, 2012

A weird little interaction took place on facebook last week in which I was called a heretic by someone i respect and someone who is a leader of the church in Scotland. In the end it turned out that he was “joking,” but he continued the ruse for some time before being a little put [...]

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From this valley they say you are going

March 13, 2012

To be fortunate enough to have a friend for over 40 years, who makes you laugh with his jokes and stories, whose heart is pure gold and who loves your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren as his own is fortune indeed. My heart cries out for my grandfather today. To lose a friend is hard. [...]

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I write because I must.

March 12, 2012

I like writing. I have days and weeks where I have to tear myself away from my moleskine or my laptop to eat. Sometimes it draws me back in whether I want it to or not. Like a siren with its calls. I write because I have to. I write because I must. Some days, [...]

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Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag

March 8, 2012

I can hear my grandmother playing this wartime number on the piano if I try hard enough: Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. Packing isn’t always this free and easy. Life doesn’t often resemble wartime propaganda songs. Yet, There’s something about packing up the material parts of your [...]

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Beyond the finish line

March 7, 2012

I’ve always been one of those people who looks ahead, beyond the finish line. Sometimes it means I get ahead of myself. Sometimes I struggle to live in the moment and enjoying being here. there. just being. Sometimes I wonder whether we get afraid of finishing something or meeting a goal because we aren’t sure [...]

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Root canal for the heart

March 6, 2012

Confirming what I have long suspected, my teeth have the worst timing known to all people with much on their plates, and international travel in their future. But in facing a second round of root canal in 12 months and the realisation that my dentist now knows way more about the stress in my life [...]

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