here, there and gone: where?
Home is a controversial word for Iyad Hayatleh, a Palestinian poet who was born in a Syrian refugee camp. “The most controversial word of my life,” he told us. He has never been to Palestine but to mark Refugee Week, Iyad read poems about home in Arabic and English as we gathered round a dead tree in Edinburgh’s Poetry Garden.
Add comment June 27th, 2009
Woytek takes one look at me and tells me very nicely to sit down. “I make you a cup of coffee, please take a seat.” I am hot and a bit bothered but I do what he says. Sun pours through the window of Kleofas Cafe as I sit writing lists of all the things I have to remember before World Kitchen opens at Leith Festival tomorrow. Then the coffee arrives with a slice of warm apple cake and suddenly I am in another time and place. (more…)
3 comments June 17th, 2009
I have a new routine before I start the hard labour of gardening; a nice half hour or so of delaying tactics, wandering round, cup of tea in hand, counting ducklings (four, nearly full grown) and cygnets (still seven a month after hatching) and then, oh go on, just another few minutes to check the bamboo sculpture (lots and lots of pieces) in the woods. (more…)
Add comment June 9th, 2009
Last night we finished our bottle of Havana Club with two lingering cocktails. It seemed only sensible to do it while I still remember how to make them they way they did in Cuba. Pay no attention to the recipe quoted in the Guardian last week. Here is how you make a real mojito. (more…)
Add comment May 11th, 2009
As directed by the woman at the garage, we turn left just past the picture of Che and head for Cienfuegos, pausing only to pick up two hikers on the road from Trinidad. They can’t speak English and our Spanish is pathetic so we settle into comfortable silence as bruising miles bump by, happy in the thought that our passengers will keep us on the right road. And they don’t seem interested in our dwindling supply of pesos. (more…)
4 comments May 4th, 2009
It was such a grey, misty morning I slept in (at 9 am it was no lighter than it was at 6 am) and now I am way behind all the things I must do before I start packing. After years of talking about it we are finally going to Cuba where I don’t think it will be at all grey and cold but that’s about all I really know. (more…)
1 comment April 16th, 2009
“There’s a man who looks as if he could do with a good sausage.” The tone is cheerful and the comment clearly intended to stop us in our tracks. It works. Mind you, the smell from the sizzling burgers and bangers might have done the trick too. But Nick Paul is taking no chances. He is determined to draw crowds to a new Farmers Market in a perhaps unlikely corner of Leith – and encourage them to spend good money while they are there (more…)
Add comment March 27th, 2009
Just for the record, I did write a letter to Edinburgh’s Head of Planning to register my concern over Tesco’s plans to open a new store at 8 Picardy Place. As it happens I wrote it the same day I went to see the Edinburgh premiere of the Age of Stupid. Make of that what you will. (more…)
2 comments March 25th, 2009
Lunch at Dionika – what else is Friday for?
Because it’s Friday we’re out to lunch. We’re just about to start on the fish when Eddie and Barry drop in, like us lured by the board outside offering three courses and a glass of wine for £7.50. (more…)
Add comment March 15th, 2009
Time to take action – and, by the way, I did
Can we stop Tesco dominating the landscape? I feel strongly that we can and must. But we will need to be quick. Letters to protest against yet another Tesco store in the Broughton area have to reach the council’s head of planning by 20 March. That’s just over a week to raise a campaign against wanton destruction of local character and independence. (more…)
12 comments March 11th, 2009
