Eyjathingydooveywhatsit

I am trying to master a word. Eyjafjallajokull. Go on, give it a go. Rolls off the tongue. Of course, in Iceland, it does, and the locals humour and encourage me when I try to drop it into a sentence. I’m in Iceland as a guest of the Integrated Disaster Risk Management Society and NORDRESS […]

Journey to the centre of the earth

Sometime in May, I came to work, went to the same desk, logged onto the same computer, and answered the same phone. But, something had changed, as I became the National Resilience Adviser for Red Cross’ Emergency Services. What do you do, in this somewhat impressively titled new role, I hear you ask. Well, this […]

Danger, Will Robinson

5988752. This is my phone number from when I was growing up. I can remember that number, and my first passport number H515543, and a couple of other numbers. But I can’t remember by daughter’s mobile numbers, or the phone numbers of friends. Not since I’ve contracted out my memory to my smart phone. There […]

The more I looked up

Warning: distressing imagery follows. The images of a high rise, fully alight can only be described as chilling. It is something outside of our daily realm. We are somewhat sensitised to house fires, they happen all too commonly. But what has happened to Grenfell Tower in London is something else. I have been following the […]

All the lights that lead us there are blinding

Again, we are horrified by what we see on TV, and social media. Children targeted in an existential struggle they have no active part in. It cuts to the core for many of us for many reasons. We struggle to come up with answers not only for us to make sense of it for our […]

Golden oldies

Recently I’ve been trawling around op shops for vinyl records, hoping for that gem. The trouble is everyone else is now doing, so the hope of finding a signed Beatles is non existent. Or even just a copy of The Triffids Born Sandy Devotional. But I have been discovering a lot of golden oldies, music […]

In vino veritas

“Wine makers lose billions annually in natural disasters” was the headline that truly caught my eye. This potentially catastrophic. Well, perhaps not, but serious. It should be a lever to get more investment out of politicians in disaster mitigation surely? The headline did get me thinking about how I have intersected with wine over the […]