He looked up at his grubby shell oil calendar and noticed he’d only written in a tiny ‘me’ in the square for Friday this week. He didn’t want mum to feel she had to do do anything. Days were so much easier with nothing in the calendar.

As I tentatively finish up one book and start thinking about the next, I find myself thinking about the why…

He tugged the stiff, heavy drawer open and pushed aside pencils, badges, plugs and hard balls of blu-tac until he found them. He glanced round and met Olivia’s flat gaze. “This will be the one. I just feel it!”

More than one path.

Rachel put the letter back in its envelope for the hundredth time. It was crumpled from over-reading. It had arrived a week ago, out of the blue. After years of sparsely worded postcards it had broken into her listlessness like an all-bells and whistles TGV. She pushed her chair back and moved to the glass…

My eleven year old made this for my birthday last week.

She was having a tip-top grand old time, sitting on the high stool playing shop with the contents of the store cupboard. “Would you like one or two tins of peaches, madam?” “I’m sorry sir, we’re all out of eggs today.” “That will be twenty-six pence thank-you” Because there was no cash register, she made…

How does it make you feel when someone says your name out loud? Surprised? Special?

Geraldine tooted her horn and stayed in the car, the engine still running. “You’d better hurry up love. You know she’ll drive off without you if you make her wait.” Christine hurried past her mum, buttoning up her cardigan and shaking back her still wet hair, “You sure you don’t want to come too?” Patricia…

Like no-one’s watching. Earlier today I was walking unsteadily and hoping stupidly that no-one was watching me. After that I sat down at the piano for the first time in a year and hoped that no-one was listening.