I have long been a proponent that travelling with your partner is the greatest litmus test of your relationship. Indeed, a 2019 survey of 2000 couples revealed one in four of them took a ‘make or break holiday’ in their first three months or sooner.
I can remember the exact moment the travel bug bit me.
‘Antalya? The place where people go for veneers and hair plugs? You know you can get kebabs in Istanbul?’ My husband, not for the first time, is bewildered by my choices.
At this year's Oscars, amid a sea of Barbie feminism dressed in bubblegum pink and Cillian Murphy's architectural bone structure, the two films I was gunning for were Perfect Days, written by Wim Wenders and Takuma Takasakiabout, and Celine Song’s Past Lives, both exploring roads not taken, regret and what it means to choose to live on your own terms.
But tomorrow is World Rare Disease Day and since I refuse to ‘show my stripes for rare diseases’ (wearing stripes is the traditional awareness raising strategy) or wear a funny T-shirt that says, ‘Auto-immune disease: Because the only thing tough enough to kick my ass is myself’, I’m writing this.
This month we’re desperately in need of good news stories. February being the bleakest month, freezing and endless with Spring, let alone Summer, seeming so very, very far away. So, like many folk, I latched onto a recent Herald article about a wonderful Glaswegian Dementia Assistance Dog, Lenny, looking for a home.
A young woman who grew up on some of Scotland’s worst schemes, who left school at 15 with no qualifications, who was told implicitly that she, her stories, did not matter, was now getting a platform in Scotland's premier paper, the longest running national newspaper in the world.
Happy New Year, you filthy animals! Welcome to 2024 and whatever it might hold.
In the words of Shania Twain, ‘Looks Like We Made It’. Whether you love or loathe Christmas, it's behind us and all we have left is a Tupperware full of shreds of drying turkey, the mountain of paper and glass recycling
Twas the month before Christmas and all through the Department Store the bustle was horrendous. The elves claimed cystitis for extra toilet breaks and Santa number three said we shouldn't talk smack about the place, lest management were listening.
