Last year I told you about my father-in-law’s tradition of getting a terrible Christmas tree.  Sadly this year he told me to write about redemption as he had found a tree without fault this time round! While my perfectionist nature would not let me select a faulty one to fuel another blog post, the tree…

What can’t you live without? Three weeks ago when my husband commandeered our laptop I would have said I could manage without it. Now, I’m not so sure. Week one was fine, I just worked on paper. Week two I was getting snappy. Week three I stopped writing altogether and read a book. It’s week…

It started out just a bog-standard Wednesday – getting up early, heading in to push paper round in his dead-end job as office adminstrator for the Simon Community. It really had been better when he was just a volunteer, but that type of charity doesn’t clothe and feed the people who do it, ironically. Sitting…

She looked in the full-length mirror and a podgy, wonky-legged middle-aged woman pulled a face at her. She adjusted her cat suit and sucked in her bulges. Five seconds later, they were back. She let out her breath with relief. Her legs were bent at the knees, shaking. She pointed at herself. One last time…

I know I’ve heard people recently dismissing the concept of lifelong learning as a waste of time, but I beg to differ.  There is something incredibly freeing about the idea that we can develop new skills, change our mind, try something different. On a deeper level, being ‘teachable’ when hard times hit is the only…

I’ve been bouncing from one mood to another about my writing these past couple of days.  Yesterday I heard someone say ‘what a waste of hours’ about an unpublished writer and the dark feeling came over me – have I just frittered away the best part of a year on something that nobody wants to…

Do you ever feel locked in to the way you’ve always done things?  This morning, as I face the chasm of the kids being back at school and the unscalable cliff face of the first draft of my book, I wish I could just change direction.  Away from all the routines that lock me in,…

smile. Those words were engraved into the top of a park bench in Ards Friary, Co Donegal.  Now, you all know I’m partial to a bit of bench sitting, but I’ve never sat on one that had its own instructions. To be honest, I was too distracted by the beautiful view of woodland, golden sand…

He’s only got little legs. Reading this joke and nearly spitting out my tea, I realised something.  Again.  It feels so good to laugh. In the evenings when we’re debating what to watch on TV, I nearly always say, ‘I want something that makes me laugh.’  I spend most of my days hating my inability…

I wonder how many of you ever take time to just sit on a seat in the park.  I never used to; always rushing through on a mission, or not wanting to stop when a reluctant toddler was already taking ages to move along the path.  When I was on the bike, it was my…