There it was, the first proper weather of the season. Storm Ali romped across the country causing considerable inconvenience. I had to change my plans and catch a bus. Heaven forfend. Boy Two abandoned his bus stop vigil when his hands went numb, and the garden is in more disarray than usual. It wasn’t always […]
Postcards from the hedge
Between the frothy sea edge and the jaunty awning of the cafe, there are people. Hot, flat people in tidy rows. Roasting and snoozing. Close enough to smell them but shut my eyes and I’m all alone. That’s when the idea struck me. Too lizardy idle to take a photo, could I just think about […]
Where’s mummy? A domestic snapshot
Where’s mummy? She can’t be far away, it’s not a very big house. Where’s mummy? Have you tried the kitchen? She’s often there. Where’ s mummy? At her desk, trying to hit a deadline… No? Where’s mummy? Putting washing in the machine. Taking washing out of the machine. Folding washing. Occasionally ironing it. Where’s mummy? […]
100 days of blogging
Or yet another attempt to get into gear… I’ve been wrestling with my blog lately. Oddly, I’ve allowed all sorts of irrelevant nonsense (feeding children, vanquishing squalor) to get in the way. And this has made me sad. Not the fed children or the less horrid house, but that it doesn’t matter how hard you […]
14 years at the school gates: what I have learned so far….
Update: This was written a couple of years ago – now the baby is in P5 (still cute though). My baby, he’s all grown up. It doesn’t seem a minute since… Yada yada yada. You know the stuff – uttered by runny-mascaraed mothers waving children off to school before returning to their bleak and […]
Choosing Meaningful Gifts for Kids
One of the most frustrating things about choosing gifts for kids is the fact that many of them are played with for a matter of hours before being discarded – never to be touched again. Not only is this a waste of money, it is generally wasteful in an environmental sense as well. Remember, when […]
Things I’ve learned from completing an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow
That’s it. My life is my own again. I’m an ordinary person rather than a mature student. Last week I handed in the final portfolio of my course and, rather than elation and a heady end-of-terminess, I felt a bit flat, slightly sad and, even, a little empty. It would be very tempting to dive […]
Things I learned from an all-inclusive holiday
You know that really annoying advert about ‘going mahoosive’ on an all-inclusive? Yeah. I went on one though I failed to discover what mahoosive is or how to do it, I did learn a few things. This year, Boys One and Two were off with their father leaving Boy Three, The Panther and I to […]