menopause

Change is now – 100 words

February 17, 2023 By Ellen

Change is now Her menopause drove her mad, she couldn’t cope, poor old thing. They nod like the bobbing penises on a jogging squad of naked bigots and say ‘ah, that explains it.’ Hot flushes – outrageous cliches. Whisper it: The Change. You’re damned right it’s change – a furious excoriating tornado of change. […]

Seeing through the brain fog – dropping another clanger

December 24, 2019 By Ellen

Yesterday I was lucky. I noticed in the nick of time that the theatre tickets were for a matinee not, in fact, for the evening show. We got there, breathless, and earned, as a bonus, an extra evening of family board games. So, yes, lucky. But it does happen to me quite often these days. […]

Short story: The Third Age

November 5, 2018 By Ellen

Climacteric NOUN 1 A critical period or event ‘the first major climacteric in 21st-Century poetry’ 2 Medicine The period in life when fertility and sexual are in decline (in women). ‘most women do not experience significant psychological problems at the climacteric’ 3 Botany The ripening period of certain fruits such as apples, involving increased metabolism […]

Menopause: A manifesto

May 15, 2018 By Ellen

It should’ve been funny, but it wasn’t. My mood and the success of my day hinged on the presence – or otherwise – of my battery-operated fan – in my bag at work. The other day it wasn’t there, it was sitting in my lovely cool kitchen at home. Damn. I could feel the sweat […]

Periods. Period. What should we call it?

January 28, 2018 By Ellen

It’s a terrible cringe of a word – period. If a word ever wore a tight bun and kept its books in alphabetical order, it’s a period. This is the word that goes with the twee trickles of dyed blue water poured in gleaming ad-land laboratories. Period. Flow, stop. Period. We need something better. Humanity […]