abtw777

It’s late on a Friday evening and I am lying exhausted on the sofa. Rain is falling heavily outside the window. Dad is at his desk, working on his stamp collection. The doorbell rings. I am off the sofa and away to the front door in an instant. It’s very unusual for us to have visitors unannounced. At the door is a friend of mine, Kimberley. She has a bicycle loaded with bags and is soaked to the skin. Hardly before we can speak, Dad has appeared behind me in the doorway. He seems terrified, and staggers back into the house. Since Dad has met Kimberley on a few occasions before, this is a bit puzzling, but perhaps he has not recognised her, or it is just the surprise of someone showing up late at night. I usher Kimberley into the house and we unload her bike and put stuff out to dry on radiators. Then I set about making some food. Meanwhile, Dad has barricaded himself into his bedroom. Despite the lure of wine and extra biscuits, I cannot tempt him out to join us. Then the...

The car had gone. Partly because it needed repairs I could not afford, but also because of my growing dislike for cars generally, and the blight they cause to our towns and cities. I can now look down smugly at drivers, especially those with 4x4’s and SUV’s! So, I am waiting on a bus one afternoon with a couple of other folk at the stop. It is just a short hop between towns to visit friends, but then a longer journey to follow later that same day. The bus pulls up at the stop a little late. The door opens but the driver puts up his hand to hold us back from boarding. There is a drunk man on the bus harassing the driver. The driver phones the police. He gets out of the bus and the drunk man follows him. He is filming the driver on his mobile phone and challenging him to a fight. The driver, a much larger man, is still on the phone to the police. The police suggest to the driver that he boards us new passengers waiting at the stop, and try to leave the drunk man out on the pav...

I had travelled with a group of friends to the small town of Falkland in Fife, Scotland for a green festival called ‘The Big Tent’. A few of us had been involved with trying to establish a Transition Town group in Dundee, and we were keen to attend a talk about the Transition Movement, scheduled for the afternoon. There are hundreds of people at the festival, but when we reach the venue for the Transition talk, there’s only a few of us. The host looks a bit deflated. Even so, she gets going with her presentation. After a few minutes, she mentions a project in Glasgow that had intended to set up a community garden scheme. This is not a Transition project as such, but one of the audience suggests it might be worth discussing. So we chat about this. The land in question lies to the rear of houses. It is frequented by drug addicts. The project leaders, we are told, did their best to spark enthusiasm in the locals to establish vegetable gardens and orchards. Apart from the general ...

I had joined an arts project called ‘If the City Were a Commons’. This is whilst I am staying back at my father’s house – living with him as his carer. Some of us in the Commons Art Group have gone along to a dance performance called ‘Plan B for Utopia’ (which subsequently featured at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival). One of those attending is a friend called Joanna. I suggest we might go for a cup of tea to talk about the Plan B performance, and she agrees. I was very short of money in those days. However, I’m an old-fashioned kind of person and still feel it’s a gentleman’s prerogative to buy for a lady. Every woman is a descendant of the Queen of Sheba, I’ve since told Joanna on many occasions, and the Queen of Sheba doesn’t pay for her own chai and chowder. (I think I learnt this fact from pop legend, Sister Sledge.) There is an anxious moment however, as Joanna considers having a salad. It costs more than I have in cash and I don’t know if any of my bank cards will work. Lu...