You know me, I like to help where I can, so I’ve made a list of tips and tricks for living with almost-adults:
Change – It’s a Mug’s Game
When I reached into the cupboard for my coffee mug this morning, the contents of the shelf told me how much I’ve changed. The cups didn’t talk (I don’t live in a Disney animation), but they did make me think about how different I now am from thirty-year-old me:
And the Winner is …
It looks like this hellish year of lockdowns is finally coming to an end (crosses fingers, toes and eyes) and as we take our first tentative steps back into a world larger than our four walls, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate some of the things within our homes that have made the last year bearable.
Who Wants to Live Forever?
When I heard the author Jeanette Winterson say, ‘Why would you want to be tethered to an ageing, dying animal if you don’t have to be?’ I felt like she was speaking directly to me.
Generation Zoom
Putting the Social into Distancing If, like me, social interaction is your sustenance, these strange times will have led to new ways of hanging with your tribe.
WhatsApp With You?
The School WhatsApp group was new to me when my youngest started secondary school and it’s been a revelation. Five months in and I think I’ve got the handle on what’s useful and what’s utterly bonkers about letting a group of disparate parents loose with an unlimited communication tool. As in all walks of life,... Continue Reading →
Fifty Years in the Making
I am fifty-years-old and I feel I have been reduced, but not in the way you might think. I have simmered for five decades and I think, at last, I have achieved my desired concentration. I am thick (waist-wise, anyway), rich (in every way that matters) and, even if I do say it myself, really... Continue Reading →
Mortality Bites
I woke up last night with an intense awareness of my mortality. Have you ever felt that existential dread; hard and shiny as a car bonnet careering for your head? I used to feel it as a child, the sudden and suffocating knowledge that I was alive, in this time, in this fragile, terrifyingly mortal... Continue Reading →
What a Middle-Aged Woman Really Wants for Christmas
The predictable answer would be diamonds, but, failing that, there are a few less expensive, but equally precious things that would make my Christmas extra special this year: Finland’s Government. Too much to ask for? OK, I’ll aim lower. A Brilliant Box Set. It’s a quiet one for us this year, so I’m hoping for... Continue Reading →
Not-So-Silent Protest
The Sounds of the Middle-Aged Body As I followed the physiotherapist’s instructions to bend my neck to the right, I heard the sound of bubble wrap popping inside my body. ‘Is that normal?’ I asked. ‘Our bodies make all kinds of protests as we get older,’ the man-child said, and asked me to bend the... Continue Reading →