. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............................................................................................. .......................... ............ ....................... . Education ........... ............................... ......................
small quantities of calorific foods will make them fat because they don't think of calories but the quantity. I have lost count of how many times I have heard other parents say "it's only a small treat' while giving their kid a chocolate bar or a muffin...
human beings are learning beings: they know hardly anything at birth but seek out and develop incredible capacities. It should make us less worried about children during this difficult time, and even more hopeful about ourselves. explore the frameworks...
Thursday. A little rain on an overcast morning A walk outside to listen to the birds Just outside in the garden for song Birdsong. grateful for the fruit trees A warm coffee in my hand and smile Large Scottish nettles in the corner A wonderful habitat...
'The enemy of conservation is tidiness' Oliver Rackham - History of the Countryside. The trouble with all our tidying up of the place, our golf courses, our sterile grass lawns is how many of us there are doing it and how little room is left for other...
. Some markers and a blank screen Some children and some freedom Freedom with a white blank screen Freedom with some coloured markers Creativity with the freedom allowed . . . . . Wonderful with the tools to create Creativity together without rules Free...
Levels of poverty in this country are shocking. With 14m identified by the UN and dismissed as a number not recognised by the last government there’s little chance that things will improve. A living wage as defined by this government will do little to...
Sunday and a lovely day with rain Hailstone - some sleet with snow A wonderful May day in the forest Glistening leaves on forest carpet Large snails slither on broken bark Smeuse harbours many wee birds A large new black umbrella protects Steps along...
Teaching critical thinking is important as is household financial management. It’s dire when anyone doesn’t understand the responsibility of credit cards, that impulse purchases often result in exorbitant interest fees, and instilling the idea of paying...
A few pictures taken today in my lovely village As I had left home and went to catch the bus The foot bridge over a burn that led to the church Over the Bowling Club we see the Loch Long ... ... is where they filmed the last Jurassic world film The new...
“Curfew” is a contraction of the original French couvre-feu, meaning literally “cover the fire”. In medieval Europe, it was common for a bell to be rung at a certain hour in the evening (often eight o’clock) indicating that all fires must be covered or...
A lot of people call JR Ewing a villain but I don't think he really was. He did bad things but he always had a good reason. Yes, selfishness was his motivation but in that world that was the only way he could survive because he knew everyone else would...
Atlantic Salmon are often referred to as the “silver tourist” and “the king of fish”, it’s undoubtedly Scotland’s most iconic species. They are an anadromous species meaning they migrate from the ocean to spawn in freshwater at the place they were born....
St. Henry As German king and Holy Roman Emperor, Henry was a practical man of affairs. He was energetic in consolidating his rule. He crushed rebellions and feuds. On all sides he had to deal with drawn-out disputes so as to protect his frontiers. This...
Wildflower meadows come under the heading, unimproved grassland. They originate from the late mesolithic, the very early years of farming, when land management was in its infancy and included, light grazing, annual hand cutting for forage and burning....
St. Oliver Plunkett The name of today’s saint is especially familiar to the Irish and the English—and with good reason. The English martyred Oliver Plunkett for defending the faith in his native Ireland during a period of severe persecution. Born in County...
Any sort of stew will probably taste as good or better reheated the next day, as yes, the flavours develop. In fact. Some ingredients will probably not be as good though. Roast potatoes, for example, can only be eaten immediately after cooking or are...
THE BUTTERFLY As the warm July days came, Mr. Yellow Butterfly wriggled and pushed in his snug little green chrysalis and wished he could get out to see the world. He remembered the days when he was a hairy little Caterpillar, crawling slowly over grass...
We had a lovely tea in this great place in Paris It is not every day we are in Paris. But Paris is a great place to be in. We decided upon this place called Mariages Freres. It had exquisite cakes that attracted us. However they had so many different...
The next stop as a Door-to-Door Poet was in Bensham. It’s common knowledge that there’s a big mix of religions and nationalities living there, especially Orthodox Jewish and Eastern European. The Comfrey is the project about meeting as many different...
In the 17th and 18th centuries, a number of British farmers such as Jethro Tull of Berkshire and Norfolk’s Charles Townshend, began experimenting with newfangled equipment and techniques such as seed drills, fertiliser use and crop rotations. These were...
standards of English are declining. This is a centuries-old lament has never been any evidence. Older people buy into the myth because young people, who are more mobile and have wider social networks, are innovators in language as in other walks of life....
Hedgehogs in the Summer Hedgehogs, slugs and moths are all night-feeding creatures. A car has been stopped and the headlights illuminate the side of the road, showing the woodland margin and penetrating into the depths of the woods beyond. The hedgehog...
In our economic system, we generally do not pay for resources we extract from the earth nor for the pollution we give back to the earth. Most of the cost of goods and services is just the cost of human labour and the returns to human investment. Our governments...
My last bike was both cheapo and scandalously maintained (by me). I have a weekly work journey that ends in a steep little road that goes into the main road. It's Stornoway not Manchester so the main road is not massive, but still pretty busy. One day...
Research into alternatives to plastic ought to be encouraged. Nature has already invented millions of alternatives. The breakthrough might be to find ways of artificially adapting natural processes and scaling them up. Keratin telephones, without using...
