Race Day

Today, I’m sitting in the pool bar. There’s a small TV mounted on the wall, and I’m watching it intently as a stream of multicoloured, highly advanced race cars slot into position on the grid before the starting line. The lights overhead flash red. The engines roar. An uncomfortably familiar sense of dread pits in

Holiday Rambles: 1. Old Friend Anxiety

At the time of writing, t’s 9:18pm. Lanzarote (and apparently also UK) time. The sun has just set, though the wind maintains its energy and rustles the palm leaves overhead. A few metres away, in the newly refurbished pool bar of the resort – one which I’ve been coming to with my family for as

Sunshine and Scars

Trigger warning: this piece discusses sensitive subjects, such as mental illness, with a primary focus on self-harm and mention of suicide. Please read no further if these are triggering topics to you. I’m sitting in my grandparents’ back garden. It’s a tiny square of grass, really, plonked somewhere in Coatbridge. But closing my eyes in

Betraying Depression

‘It’s never as easy as deciding to keep going, and suddenly the dark clouds disappear and it’s all rainbows and butterflies.

You’re not out of the woods yet, but you can at least see the clearing.’

The Waste and the Whale

But that’s perhaps the saddest thing about it all, about any marine conservation or environmental issue: the victims of human activity are innocent and unaware, simply trying to live their lives in harmony with their environment.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Waste-mas

How to have yourself a very merry Christmas – sustainably! Last Christmas, I gave you my heart… But the very next day, you sent it to landfill alongside the other thousands of tonnes of Christmas waste… It’s that time of year again! It’s December and if you listen closely, you can just about hear millions

COVID and the Climate

A tale of two crises. 2020 has been some year. And we’ve only just entered July. COVID-19 is still a very real global threat. But fortunately for an increasing number of countries, the ‘end’ is in sight. No new cases, no new deaths: finally able to begin returning to some degree of ‘normality’, whatever that

Who am I, so Wise in the Ways of Science?

Hey dad, I finally started a blog. First things first, my name is Caitlin. I’m a current marine biology student, studying at the University of Stirling, and president of the university’s first Marine Conservation society which I founded in 2019. I’m currently undergoing training to receive my BSAC Ocean Diver qualification, and volunteer for the