The summer of 2018 was long, hot and record-breaking, yet I spent most of it stuck indoors catching up on a huge backlog of work. I can’t help but feel that I’m entitled to a heat wave again this year, now that I’m in a position to enjoy it. So far, however, the season isn’t living up to expectations. The solstice is almost upon us, yet I find myself waiting for summer to begin. The winter months are long and arduous here in the north east Highlands. Consequently, there is a certain amount of pressure to make the most of…

I come from a family of hoarders, and much of my childhood was spent slavishly furthering that great tradition – toy buses, coins, Dandy comics, badges, postcards, stamps, those utterly useless wee sheathed pens you used to get at every visitor attraction across the land, and much more besides. Thankfully, unless you count Munro-bagging as collecting (it’s difficult to take a mountain home thank goodness!), my urge to collect dissipated into my teenage years and I naively assumed my collecting days were long behind me. But 30 years later, when I clean the inside of my car before taking it…