Enniskillen lingers
It never occurred to me that I was a child of The Troubles until I stumbled upon a scholarly dissertation …
It never occurred to me that I was a child of The Troubles until I stumbled upon a scholarly dissertation …
The other day a Facebook memory popped up to remind me that my actual memory just isn’t what it used …
In the parlance of aviation, a “severe clear” sky, so intensely blue with seemingly unlimited visibility and air so pure, it can blind a pilot.
“I have been 60 for four years now, and by the time you read this I will probably have been 60 for five. I survived turning 60, I was not thrilled to turn 61, I was less thrilled to turn 62, I didn’t much like being 63, I loathed being 64, and I will hate being 65. I don’t let on about such things in person; in person, I am cheerful and Pollyanna-ish. But the honest truth is that it’s sad to be over 60.
The long shadows are everywhere ¬ friends dying and battling illness. A miasma of melancholy hangs there, forcing you to deal with the fact that your life, however happy and successful, has been full of disappointments and mistakes, little ones and big ones. There are dreams that are never quite going to come true, ambitions that will never quite be realised.