I’ve often wondered what the dying days of the Soviet Union must have been like for the people who lived there. As institutions crumbled, buildings decayed, and the very fabric of life lay in tatters, the state broadcaster was telling a bewildered public that all was well. Soviet citizens didn’t have access to the internet,…
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I’ve taken the decision to grow all of my berries in pots. Originally, I was going to use a bed, but the soil requirements are so varied that I think each bush will be happier in its own home. So I’ll be moving two honey berry plants and potting up a couple of blueberries. I…
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A couple of days after Christmas, I came down with flu. I wasn’t sure it actually was flu at first, but several negative covid tests and an illness that just wouldn’t shift convinced me this was the case. I thought I was on the mend until last Tuesday evening when I began to cough up…
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Only a few weeks to go until my gardening dreams collide with reality. At the moment, every vegetable I want to grow will go exactly to plan and look as good as (if not better than) the photo on the seed packet. There will be no weeds, no aphids, no blight, no leggy seedlings –…
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Glennis Toole was the coolest person I’d ever met. As I was seven years old at the time, I hadn’t really considered other people ‘cool’ or ‘uncool’, but I was instantly smitten with her. She and her family had moved into a house on our street and as there weren’t many kids in our neighbourhood…
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I vividly remember ringing in 2016 with my first view of the Northern Lights. I’d been chasing them for years and was beyond excited to finally see them. I just knew it was a good omen and that there were great things in store for us all. Then beloved celebrities started dying, the UK voted…
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While goofing about on TikTok last night, I was shown a clip about perennial kale. I’ve grown kale as an annual, but had no idea there was a perennial variety that produces leaves throughout the year – multiple years, in fact. We eat a lot of kale, so I immediately began searching for seeds so…
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Good riddance to 2022. It was hard on just about everyone, and it was cruel to us until the very end with the death of a much-loved pet and more than one horrible diagnosis for a family member. But it’s nearly over and I won’t dwell. Instead I’ll look back on the things I accomplished.…
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Wishing everyone love, peace, and hope for a better future.
Read MoreSo I’m no longer allowed to share my mastodon link on Twitter, but I can link to my blog. If you’re looking for me, I am here: https://mastodon.scot/@figandpen
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Five years ago, I bought a Mulberry backpack handbag. I’d been coveting it for ages and spent hours looking at it online. I travelled to Edinburgh to the Mulberry shop and inspected it closely to ensure I really liked it, and I tried it on to be sure it wouldn’t look weird on my short…
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My corporation tax bill arrived this week. It’s down 50% from last year, which isn’t a surprise. Sales are down by about the same because ‘The Party of Business’ is making it impossible to run a company in the UK. Businesses now have ridiculous trade barriers with our largest export market, skyrocketing energy bills which…
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It’s not until you get away from dysfunction that you realise how bad it was. I wouldn’t say I was addicted to Twitter, but I used it a lot. In the beginning, it was a bit of fun, marvelling at how amusing some people could be with just a few words. Then came the commiserations.…
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The signs were there from the beginning; repetitive behaviours, preferring my own company, trouble making friends, and doing well in school despite hating the rigidity of it all. Later came my bafflement at the social ease of my peers, my struggling to follow arbitrary rules, and my generally feeling like an alien who’d been dropped…
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Since the moment I was capable of self-reflection, I’ve thought of myself as a world-champion grudge holder. There are individuals and events going back decades that I’ve neither forgiven nor forgotten. I hold onto these like the precious gems of knowledge they are – little diamond lessons of pain and betrayal that won’t be repeated.…
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Fig and Pen 