Yesterday, my daughter and I snipped off the masking tape on a box with a label saying it contained her great granny’s china coffee set destined for her when she’s old enough.

cos I keep pulling so hard that I fall over backwards.” I was reminded of that Winnie the Pooh quote when I saw the other mugs on the shelf in my parents’ holiday house. My siblings had different ones, but that one was mine. Now, I can see how apt it was.

Of happiness. Do you have one? This past while, life has been reduced to a bare, lonely existence of limited human interaction bound up with an abnormal level of anxiety. How can we keep trudging through it all? How do we find any richness in the life we’re living? Or are we just surviving. This…

Then how many words for a hug?

Our lives? Is it in teaspoonfuls or spades?

Or maybe a thousand. I got one of those fancy step counting watches for my birthday at the start of the month. I was fully intending to ignore the number of steps my shaky legs could do but somehow, curiosity got the better of me. The first day I checked I knew the number would…

For as long as I can remember, but not really these past twenty years, we’ve always been told that one day, dad would get my mum an emerald ring. I don’t think it was ever a serious request, but the notion hung around many’s an after-dinner discussion. Maybe one day, mum had seen an emerald…

Being less. When I commented that I was late this morning my son said, ‘sure you’ve got nothing to do anyway’. Before that my husband had encouraged me to stay in bed as I didn’t have anything in particular to get up for. As you can imagine, neither comment helped with my sense of purpose…

I sent my two on their bikes to post a card last week. It was only after they came back that I realised I hadn’t written my address on the back. What if they want to write back, or what if it gets lost? I worried that afternoon and then I asked myself, why does…

I’ve always been the type who fears the dark, far-off places, unknown things and future events. When I was wee, an old man asked me why I was afraid of the dark when everything is the same as when it’s daylight. I haven’t forgotten that, but still the dark figures lurk. The year I went…