Matthew marched on the spot while he was waiting. He liked the swish his new tracksuit made every time he moved. He thought back to the joggers doing funny things with their legs and arms before they set out and tried to copy them, holding his foot up and folding his leg. He was hopping…

Recently I heard two people on different occasions redeem the idea of doing something the wrong way. A piano teacher called straying from the set music playing a ‘jazz note’. Artist Bob Ross said, ‘we don’t make mistakes. We just have happy accidents.’

They were all there – her sons, her much younger daughter, the camera crew and the over-excited presenter. He reminded her of her old pal Drew, back in the day. As she slowly put one foot in front of the other the people around her timed their steps to be in line with her. With…

Your day to work out ok.

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.