I remember the first time Aliyah and Annie had a play date. We were walking on a path at the Meadows (big green space in Edinburgh): girls in front, mums behind. One girl said to the other ” Let’s do a show!” And the other one said “Yaay”. They immediately held hands and skipped on ...

The last couple of weeks have, for a few reasons, been a little bit stressful. I’ve found myself getting over busy and overwhelmed. One thing that’s really helped has been doing exercise. The feeling of relaxation, and release I felt after exercising this week was most welcome. Focusing on something totally different than the thoughts ...

It’s Friday night and despite having promised myself, and you, my readers, that I’d write a blog post every day, today I’m struggling. Even with all the best intentions in the world, after a day of looking after small kids, having a fridge break down, my son puke on me, and now me feeling sick ...

Macbeth, a Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hamlet, with a piece of original music thrown in. You can’t complain at that for an evening of entertainment by primary school kids. I know I’ve gone on about it the last few days, but really, you should have been there! Clever, witty, hilarious, contemporary and complex are just ...

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I went to the ‘spring fling’ concert at James Gillespie’s high school last night. I went to watch Aliyah and her class perform a piece of music, and an extract of a play they’ve been working on. Boy was I impressed! And surprised! It is amazing to see what ...

For the last two months, my daughter’s school have had the privilege of working together with professional playwright, show producer, director and all round theatrical genius, Tim Wilcock. He has been coming in and volunteering to produce no less than three Shakespeare plays, with primary six and seven aged children . They are doing adaptations ...

In the last couple of months I’ve had the pleasure of taking part in a fantastic activity, organised by Aliyah’s friend’s dad, Boris (who’s also an award winning academic at the uni of Edinburgh by the way). Every second Sunday, Boris gets himself and a group of kids from the school together and runs a ...

Reunited The story begins in the village of Embu, about 30 kilometres away from Sao Paolo. It is a Sunday afternoon in January. ‘Embu das artes’ they call it, because of the flea market where local artists sell their arts and crafts every week. It is hot, and very humid. His white linen shirt clings to his ...

Thursday this week was officially the first day of Spring. It is admittedly a beautiful season. It starts to get warmer, the sun starts to come out, daffodils bloom, there’s a certain smell in the air that makes you want to be outside as much as possible, it’s lighter earlier in the morning and lighter ...

Contrary to what the title might suggest, let me start by saying that there was NOTHING crappy about the dinner party I hosted this evening. There were seven beautiful adults and eight beautiful kids. The food was lovely and the chat was fun. My house wasn’t even that messy. The reason for the title is ...