Diana Hall

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, this is season to be jolly. Well, I suspect jolly might not be top of our agendas this morning after first minister announced new Covid guidelines in Scotland this this Xmas. A friend a mine recently describe it we’re doing the season of pandemic as enduring.

Today is world's Health Day, set aside to draw attention to what we need to do to keep the planet and its people healthy, and to encourage the nurture of community with a focus on wellbeing.

February is LGBT+ history month, an opportunity to offer awareness and education around experiences of LGBT+ people. It’s 50 years since the first pride march in UK. When I was born in 1976, homosexuality between men is still criminal act in Scotland. Attitudes about diversity and inclusion has changed in great deal for the better since then.

As the doors of COP26 close, the climate change is all over the news. The need to limit global warming is the defining issue of our time, and the news of it can be quite overwhelming. So much changes needed. For my part, I find myself cycling through denial, lament, and desire for action. It can be exhausting. But last week I have got an unusual perspective, pilgrimage.

I don't know if you're part of the shed evolution, the image of a ramshackle by a hut with few rusty guard and tools in it has become a thing of the past. This week seen the announcement of final ascend for "Shed of the Year" award 2021, and they're quite some thing. The shortlisting includes a hipster office, replica of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and no less than two Scottish chapels. Over the last year we all spend more time than usual in home. Some of us has to share a space more and feel the strain as the result. So perhaps it's no surprise that escaping to a garden shed and doing it up has become so popular. Whether it's somewhere to do DIY, read a book, have a quiet drink, a simple wooden structure can become a heaven.

Until we figure out how to manufacture love, we humans have something to offer that no machine can replace. 21/11/23

Another steps towards normality. A walk with couple of more people may feel like what we really need, particular a year being cooped up or forcibly separated from folk we love, our longings go deep, we realise how much we relies on social interaction and simple human touch, things we've take for granted until they were taken away.

Listening to voices of people with wider interests enable deeper understanding and border appreciation can be invaluable 8/7/22