fourth edition

The Glasgow Botanic Garden is a treasure grove of abandoned Victorian buildings, rose gardens, playing grounds, medicinal plant beds, squirrels chasing squirrels and big glasshouses filled to the brim with exotic plants.
For some unfathomable reason, a property developer has decided that it would be a really fantastic idea to put a nightclub in [...]

I’d show you a picture, but it’s a bit too gruesome: I have yarn burn on my left hand. It’s all band-aided up now, but I had to abandon the yarn-fest late yesterday night after it started hurting too much. Who knew that my latest obsession would turn this nasty? I’m accustomed to paper cuts, [...]

The pilot gingerly untangled his fingers from the rope he’d been holding on to, worked out which way up he was, shifted the tool box off his legs, wiped the oily water out of his eyes, and hauled himself upright.
“Well, Hester, looks like we’re getting the hang of this,” he said.
His dæmon, who looked like [...]

Today a gækkebrev arrived. Literally meaning “a riddling letter”, a gækkebrev is a letter in the shape of an elaborate paper cut-out with a riddle written in its middle. Sometimes a snowdrop is included with the letter, sometimes the riddle just alludes to the snowdrop.
The letter is commonly associated with Easter in Denmark and [...]

Still one of the best singles of the Noughties (and I love the video too).

We went to the hospital today for a long-awaited appointment. I have been undergoing epilepsy tests but they came out negative. No abnormal electrical currents or any abnormal brain structures – I’m relieved that I’m not dying of a brain tumour and I’m frustrated that I could not get a clear, concise answer to wtf [...]

A blustery day in Glasgow. We seized the moment when the rain stopped and went into city centre to buy me a cinnamon latte and browse quickly through the bargain offers in Waterstones. This is what passes for normalcy – I could do it because the city was quiet, I had company and I had [...]

If Rufus Wainwright were a soft toy..

Ladies and gentlemen, we had snow the other day. You might think that my Viking Blood might’ve caused me to embrace the weather and frolic through the snow like some demented Norse god, but no. I hate snow. Blame it on too many schoolyard snowball fights which I always lost. No, I stayed indoors and [...]