I Contain Multitudes

Floating on Loch Tay, I could see the sand sparkling beneath us.
Must be mica, I thought.
“Gold!” shouted my daughter next to me.

Leaning back, weight on my arms, legs trailing in the water on either side of the paddleboard, I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sun.

That morning, I'd made an impulse purchase. An on-sale paddleboard from Tiso. Chiding myself all the way to the till, all the way up Glen Quaich and down the winding road into Kenmore, I told myself I needed to get a grip. That impulse spending was irresponsible.

Here on the clear, shallow water, daughter’s body against mine, it seemed like the best decision I had ever made. I admitted to myself I had indeed learned the wrong lesson again.

Then a small whisper:
“This is the best day of my life, Mumma.”

My youngest still sees magic in clouds and puddles. She still gets excited by car journeys at night. I remember her joy, on a journey back from Edinburgh, at seeing the huge sign at the 'Big Tesco' lit up for the first time.

I sometimes worry that this means her world is too small. But I think it means her world is still wide open? She sees gold everywhere.

DOUBLE DENIM

My relationship with how I look is… complicated. I’ve been working on it my whole life. And just when I thought I’d made some progress, peri-menopause kicked down the door and threw a spanner in the confidence works.

So when my publisher asked, a few months ago, if I had any more headshots, it sat with me like a subtle threat.

But then I thought of a solution.

My eldest daughter is a talented photographer (with absolutely no interest in photography). So I asked her if she’d take some pictures of me, her mum. She said yes, and we agreed her fee in Pokemon cards.

And when I saw the final images, I knew my hunch had been right.
There’s no way I could hate how I looked when it was how she sees me.

It's also rare for me to look like myself in photographs, but these really do.

Here are a few of the final images.

P.s I'm bringing double denim back, and no one can stop me.

ARTISTIC NOSINESS

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about other people’s gardens.
Mostly while avoiding doing anything with my own.

There’s something so intimate about them. Something quietly revealing.
The care, the preferences, the planning. What’s left wild. What’s clipped back. The adorment.

When I walk around our village, my favourite thing to photograph is the little glimpses I get through fences and hedges, from across the street. Artistic nosiness.

Here are a couple I’ve loved recently.

PET PEEVES (INSTALLMENT 1 OF 1000000)

I’d like to start a series called Pet Peeves, because I have so many it’s basically guaranteed content… forever.

This week: How much sex there is in TV and film.

Not in a pearl-clutching way. Just in a “is this even necessary and can we move on now I’m bored?” sort of way.

Sometimes it feels like the writers hit a point in the script where they don’t know what to do, so they just… take everyone’s clothes off. It’s predictable. It’s lazy. It’s not even slightly hot.

We get sex as shortcut. Sex as performance. Sex as a poor substitute for emotional complexity. Sex as filler. Sex as 'that's just what people do when they're in the same room?'

Give me awkward silence. Give me comfortable silence. Give me a family meal. A grocery store interaction. Give me anything but sex.

To be clear, I'm not anti-sex. I’m just pro-interesting.

I feel my newsletters are becoming more and more like the inside of my brain. You're welcome?

As always, thanks for reading, for subscribing, for supporting and enabling me ;)