What Makes You Tick?

I met Frances McCafferty when playing clarinet in an amateur musical. Frances had come from an international career in opera and had generously agreed to be part of the production, coming out of retirement to join the cast on stage. So I couldn’t resist the temptation of dropping past her dressing room one evening and asking if I could interview her about life in opera and what it took to get started. It was a precious opportunity to get a first-hand account - it’s not every day you meet an o...

I met Markus Stitz just over a year ago, when I started cycling the Edinburgh version of Dawn Patrol that he set up. Dawn Patrol rides leave from the centre of the city at 5:40am a few times a week, for either a road or a gravel ride of about 30km, which ends at Cairngorm Coffee. All in time to fit in before starting work. Markus has managed to put his love of cycling at the heart of how he makes a living and I could have very easily spent an hour asking him about that, but I decided instead ...

This is a love letter to my cycling group Dawn Patrol, which meets three times a week at 05:40 (yep, in the morning) to cycle the same 18 miles / 30 km or so each time and then have coffee together, before heading off and tackling the day. This group has become very special to a lot of us and I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to explain why and how. At the heart of the story is the value and joy of spending time together in person, no screens involved. Turning the pedals along the sam...

Today I’m talking to Nigel Forster, who builds guitars for a living. He did his apprenticeship with Stefan Sobell, who is considered one of the best in the world at his craft. After working under Stefan, Nigel set up his own guitar-making workshop in Newcastle back in 2004. If you ordered a guitar from him today, you would need to wait at least a year before you got it. When I look at the photos on Nigel’s Facebook page of some of the guitars he's been building, I can see why people are willi...

Today I’m talking to Angie, who has been a yoga teacher for the past 10 years. About a year ago, Angie set up her own yoga studio in Edinburgh with two good friends and I’ve been taking her classes there for the last few months. I liked Angie straight away ... it would be hard not to … she’s one of those people who doesn’t put up any barriers, right from the beginning. She’s warm and friendly and she definitely doesn’t take herself too seriously. It's a moving story of how she found her way t...