Reading an exchange on Facebook between two people lately (about the ongoing antisemitism row in the UK Labour party), it calls to mind a recent exchange I had with someone on a Scottish Independence page (about some of the ongoing abuse directed toward farmers, due to a lot of them supposedly voting No in 2014…
I can honestly say that I haven’t worked this hard since I left New York for a new life in the Netherlands. Oh, I’ve worked hard since then, nobody who knew/worked with me during my time in Amsterdam would say otherwise. But my life in NYC meant regular 72-hour work weeks, with 4am ‘dinners’ after…
I’ve been on a steep learning curve in the sixteen months since I moved to the Highlands to live with D on the family farm. I’ve learned to build and repair fences, and harvest, bale and wrap haylage (a wetter brand of hay). I’ve learned to use a compost toilet, and all about the different…
Yesterday, D and I climbed to the highest point on the farm, a small hump atop the flat-topped hill we call ‘the Mesa’. We leaned against the flag pole there, grateful for the breeze that kept the midges away, looking out over the sun-bathed fields and woods below, wondering if this would be a better…
Watching Andrew Marr’s interview with Boris Johnson Sunday morning was educational. And terrifying. Because it made three things clear to me: Why he and the pro-Brexit faction he belongs to really are pro-Brexit, why him being Prime Minister would be a disaster for the UK and especially any part that isn’t the ‘Home Counties’; and…
About 2 ½ years ago, I was offered the gift of a place to stay in Scotland, while I tested the personal and professional waters in this country I’ve long been fond of. A chance to discover whether my long-distance infatuation for it would turn to love once I met it up close. Since then,…
I find it hard to believe it’s been so long since I last visited this blog. Harder still, to read my last post and its hope for…well, hope. It’s effort to stay positive in the midst of heartbreak. It’s call to hold the so-called winners of the Scottish independence referendum to their promises. I’m amazed,…
I have two choices, looking at how the Scottish referendum went: to look at the 55% of the voters who rejected the uncertainty of independence for the certainty of more Westminster policies. Policies which have given Scotland food banks; closed shipyards, quarries and paper-mills; illegal wars; austerity and bankers’ bonuses as an answer to financial…
There was a moment in 1977 when I was forced to decide whether or not I was going to allow fear to control my choices, and by extension, my life. I was 18 years old, poor, and living on my own while going to college. I wanted my college education very badly. I wanted the…
If my grandfather hadn’t gotten out of the family business of mining coal…he wouldn’t have joined the Merchant Marines, ending up in Detroit where he met and married my grandmother, and they wouldn’t have had my father who had health issues requiring a warm and dry climate which made them move to southern California where…
Donna DuCarme 