I’m an octogenarian ! As of last week. It’s been a long time coming. And I scarcely feel a day over seventy nine. After considering some more up-market options [one restaurant had closed down, another did not open at lunchtime], Susie and I took the train across the iconic Forth Rail Bridge to Aberdour, aContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 156”
Author Archives: europhilevicar
Through a glass darkly – 155
Confessions of a pagan nun Against a future downsizing from this house [but Don’t hold your breath], I regularly clear small handfuls of books off the shelves and take them to one of the charity shops. Often I can remember when and where I bought books and read them. But I recently came across KateContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 155”
Through a glass darkly – 154
Last year I read most of Evelyn Waugh’s earlier books, the novels that is not the travel writing which has dated badly. The conventional wisdom is that the First World War produced great poetry, think Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Ivor Gurney and Isaac Rosenberg; whereas the best known writers of the SecondContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 154”
Through a glass darkly – 153
Books can be evocative. I clearly remember being given a paperback copy of John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor, Sailor, Spy back in the mid-1970s by Mme Anne Warter, then Directrice of the Paris bookshop Nouveau Quartier Latin, and reading it with great excitement on the rather second-rate Silver Arrow train from the Gare du NordContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 153”
Through a glass darkly – 152
I’m often given books as presents, and sometimes I don’t want to read them. A few years ago I was given Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty First Century. And although I would like to have read it, I didn’t actually want to open it. And it sat reproachfully unopened on the shelves for aContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 152”
Through a glass darkly – 151
The days go by, each day getting a little longer. Passion Week began with an appointment with the diabetic nurse. continued through a series of early morning services at Newington Trinity, and ended with a walk of witness from Mayfield Church to Nicholson Square. And a sombre service of Tenebrae on Good Friday evening. DuringContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 151”
Through a glass darkly – 150
I’m ambivalent about mountains. On the one hand I’m very acrophobic around bridges, high buildings, and mountain roads: as a child I baulked at going up the Monument in London, more recently I used to be nervous about driving across the Forth Road Bridge, and driving over the Viaduct de Millau is the stuff ofContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 150”
Through a glass darkly – 149
The amaryllis on the dining table has come out in a big way. And we’ve been out too; we took a Car Club car out along the coast in East Lothian. I couldn’t get my left leg under the steering wheel, so Susie had to drive. After a standard trip to the charity shop, weContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 149”
Through a glass darkly – 148
The good news is that the magnolia is about to come out in the front garden. I’m reluctant to write about Donald Trump. Seeing him on the television news fills me with revulsion. [I feel the same way about Benjamin Netanyahu.] Back in October 2020, when I had started writing this blog, I addressed theContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 148”
Through a glass darkly – 147
When I was growing up, alpha was the first letter of the Greek alphabet. And the self-appellation of the risen Christ in Revelation 22. But for the past few decades it is best known as an extraordinarily successful course in Christian apologetics. Launched and resourced and promoted by that phenomenon of a church, Holy Trinity,Continue reading “Through a glass darkly – 147”
Through a glass darkly 