It’s been a lonely couple of weeks.  My weak legs have won out, and the need for the kids to be out and about has meant that other people have taken them away.  I was relieved that they weren’t paying the indoors price for my bad health, and that they were enjoying the glorious September…

I’m sitting here searching for something happy, after spending a morning looking at articles and video clips on the history of the Troubles.  All of a sudden, I am very glad I was born in the eighties, in a leafy suburb of Lisburn, and was spared the huge trauma of 1970s Belfast.  Of course, the…

I did a stupid thing last night.  Or, actually, what I forgot to do was the stupid part.  My wee boy lost another tooth yesterday, and was immediately excited about the tooth fairy.  He had clearly, or conveniently, forgotten that his dad had told him well over a year ago that such a thing didn’t…

I was at a wedding last Saturday, and five minutes after sitting down at a table of strangers, it happened.  They were all younger than my husband and me, two married and all childless.  The guy I was sitting next to was a submariner  in the Navy – what a very exciting and impressive job…

Note to self: when the days get shorter, when the children have gone off to school and you’re left alone to find a different purpose, when winter brings unwelcome, much dreaded spells of bad health, or when unexpected troubles come, don’t forget that you had a bright summer.  That you felt warmth.  The kids were…

I did something yesterday that really was a long time coming, but I never seemed to be able to face it before.  I flung open an over-stuffed wardrobe, and pulled out all my shoes.  The ones I had no chance of walking or even standing in anymore.  I’d kept them in this wild hope that…

You were always there, standing tall when I was rushing around, going here and there.  Sometimes I forgot to look at you, but you stayed the same, ready to be noticed but unaffected if you weren’t.  When I sat down with my tea most mornings, there you were, and then we faced each other. You…

It’s been 12 years since I last physically stood with them, but somehow they’re still close to me in spirit.  It only took one phone call for me to be welcomed in, and in some ways, I’ve never left.  During my first week in Nice, I spent some time with a small group at L’Eglise…

If you didn’t know, you’d think I was a pretty lazy person – always parking as close as possible to my destination, sitting on whatever bench is available, griping about the long standing wait at the end of school.  It does look bad, I know that painfully well. You have no idea how much I…

She should have known when they dug out the roses without asking, or when they fussed when she fell.  There was hardly a scratch on her, but they jumped at it like she’d signed herself off.  Hovering like vultures they were – darting their eyes round her wee house making some kind of inventory of…