28th April 2020

I finally gave in and filled in a - how is your child responding to Covid - questionnaire. I've been avoiding them because of my scepticism about the motivation to get them out there and also because I don't think it will make a shred of difference as to what is offered to families who …

23rd April 2020

I'm sitting here eating toast and drinking tea. Tea isn't unusual. I drink an awful lot of (decaf) tea, with many many cups being drunk in the evening. The toast is a little more unusual. It is my go to middle-of-the-night snack. You know the thing I mean. You wake up and all the things …

17th April 2020

One month on. So I've been writing this diary-blog for a month now. I didn't start at the beginning of lockdown, but I don't think it took me too long to want to start writing again. Some days it comes easily - I have something to say and it sort of writes it itself. Other …

“to face unafraid the plans that we made”

I love Christmas. I love the fuss. I love buying presents. I love going shopping when it’s too busy to actually buy anything, but not too busy to stop and get hot chocolate or mulled wine somewhere. I love putting up the tree and not having any colour scheme or any scheme at all except …

Ordinary Extraordinariness

There really shouldn't be something that is both ordinary and extraordinary given the definition of extraordinary. However, if you ignore the synonym exceptional and think about other synonyms, we can definitely have amazing and astonishing things that are ordinary. Richard Dawkins in Unweaving the Rainbow invites us to experience this and I think this is easy …

Glass half full girl

  Bit of a departure from my usual blog. I wrote this in response to Mind's creative writing competition  - 1500 words on the theme of 'hope'. I never entered the competition, but I thought I would post it here. A short story about mental health on the theme of hope. Hope had always wanted to be …

A three heron day

Today is a three heron day. I’m not very superstitious and I’m always willing to challenge my beliefs to check whether they correspond to some kind of reality. You could say I'm quite a rational person, but I do like to rate the quality of my day by herons. Let me explain. Each work morning …

In support of support groups

Today marks the end of an era. The arthritis walking group that I have been walking with for nearly four years is finishing up. Although it is sad, it is for a great reason. Our walking leader, Peter, is going back to college to start working on his new career. I explained it to my …