I have a confession to make: I hate the whole #makingmemories thing. My reason? My bad health meant that I was rarely able to create or involve myself in outings like that. What usually happened was that I would wait at home for my family to do something and then show me the photos, or…

I couldn’t write my usual blog last week because I saw so many people telling us how to think, feel and behave and I felt yet another one of the same would be too much. I’m returning to my usual today because I miss the discipline of positive thinking I practise every Monday. I’ve partially…

He rummaged through the broken pencils, bits of chalk, rubber bands and old receipts to find a thin ring-bound notepad. He took it and the only working pen to the table. He looked out beyond the dripping tap, the empty counter and checked the sky. Grey but not black. He’d be dry at least. The…

That nursery rhyme has been stuck on repeat in my head for at least a week now. Did you know that it was only in the mid 20th century that people associated it with the Plague and Black Death? When it was originally sung or chanted in the 17th century, there was no such dark…

Last week I read a tweet criticising the common tendency now to dismiss the coronavirus as something that will affect only the elderly and the vulnerable: the ‘only’s’.

My daughter is scared of heights. It took her at least seven months to jump off the edge into a swimming pool. Up until that point she stood, knees bent, ready to go. But she always changed her mind at the last minute. It took the swimming instructor putting his hand out for her to…

‘When a thing is wick, it has a life about itMaybe not a life like you and meBut somewhere there’s a secret streak of green inside itNow come and let me show you what I mean’*

I heard that song by Sia yesterday and felt incredibly sad. You would think that the thought of swinging from anything would be an exhilarating thing… Since November I’ve been having a health blip and all the self-pity that comes with it. I have watched my life shrink, my steps shorten, my movements slow, my…

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe being a more or less house-bound author is to blame. But recently I have discovered that my mood on a Monday has become inextricably bound up with the number of likes I get for the weekly blogs I write. As that number drops, so does my confidence.