It’s sickening, isn’t it? From Facebook to Instagram and back again, families hand-in-hand on sunlit meadows, tiny hands baking cupcakes, wobbly colourful art, snuggling up on sofas and the results of tie-dye. Where on earth has the tie-dye fascination come from? Up and down the nation, parents are doing their best, and putting the most […]
Coronavirus: Beware the free-time fallacy
Stay at home, they said. Save lives, they said. It’ll only be for a while, they said. Look on the bright side, they said. Think of all that time to do the things you’ve been putting off for years. Shakespeare, they said, wrote some good material while social distancing from bubonic plague, and as for […]
Self isolation: Day one, things I’ve learned
It’s funny how the significant moments happen without fanfare, rather than to the big hulloo you think they deserve. Working from home this lunchtime when Boy Two came in from school looking clammy and pale. He flopped onto the spare bed and said: “Urgh.” He was shivery and warm, achy, coughing and tired. Oh, shit. […]
Inadvertent wisdom – the same difference again
It was one of those half-hearted attempts to encourage wholesome activity in Boy Three. A pathetic plea to do something that doesn’t involve doing battle in cartoonish worlds, listening to shouty American YouTubers, or both. “Draw me a picture. Just, you know, how you feel, or something… “ and off he went. I’d forgotten the […]
Things I’ve learned from my children – the party version
It’s party time. Another rite of passage lately – the teenage party. The campaign began months before, a subtle and effective manoeuvring of the notion from a slight suggestion to an in-the-calendar fact. I tried to think of a reason to say no, but there really wasn’t one. The teen in question and his friends […]