Nothing scares me more than boredom. I haven’t yet cultivated the art of doing nothing without getting bored (although I know several people who have it down to a fine art) and I have a propensity to fill every last hour of the week. And then a bit more. When I left my job – […]
Turns out my mother was telling the truth
‘What would you like for Mother’s Day?’ the children ask me. ‘Just you,’ I say, ‘and a homemade card.’ ‘That’s not enough!’ they say, outraged on my behalf, ‘you need a proper present!’ When I was little I used to ask my mother the same question, and receive the same answer in return. I was […]
Fashion influences for six-year-olds
On Saturday we took the girls for a slightly belated birthday treat. We have left behind the days of big village hall parties, moving instead into the territory of cinema trips, bowling excursions and lunches with a few select friends. It’s not much easier on the pocket, but it’s a hundred times less stressful, and […]
Alarms and Excursions at The Theatre, Chipping Norton
I have a particular fondness for farce, both in real life and on the stage, and so it was with great pleasure that I attended press night at The Theatre, Chipping Norton for their ‘home-grown’ production of Alarms and Excursions, by Michael Frayn. The play comprises six scenes, each portraying a different snapshot of lives […]
The love of a mother
Six years ago my girls were born, weighing 6 lbs 2oz and 6 lbs 14 oz, in the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. They arrived in the morning, after a longer than expected labour that tipped us out of February 28th and into the novelty of the 29th. I looked down into the sleeping faces […]
I don't do this enough
My daughter is asleep on me, her warm body fused into mine. I am typing with one hand; a skill learned nearly six years ago during hours of breastfeeding. My daughter sleeps, and I hold her the way I held her as a baby. I drop my lips to the top of her head, but instead […]