I spend most of my life with sadness buttoned up inside me, a scarf wound tightly around the lump in my throat. When sorrow seeps out through the gaps I add more buttons, another layer, another piece of armour. But it’s a tenacious beast, grief. It won’t be quietened, it won’t give up. Some days […]
Time for bed
My best friend’s husband had a vasectomy last week. It’s become quite popular within my circle of acquaintances, which makes me realise I must now be middle-aged. It used to be tattoos and piercings – now it’s all tummy tucks and sterilisation. A vasectomy seems to be quite the in thing among responsible men nowadays. […]
Is Voldemort real?
Four-year-old E suffers from a vivid imagination. She seizes upon single issues and pursues them doggedly, often worrying for hours into the night about the hows and the whys and the whens. Unusually, for a mother as uncharitable as I am, I am enormously sympathetic to her. I think I was born worrying about something […]
Fireworks
I can’t recall the day the boys were born. Can’t play a film of it in my head, the way others can. The day is a series of snapshots, taken as though I were quite detached from it all; merely an observer passing through the maternity wards. Jolly midwives; grim-faced doctors; juddering contractions; trailing wires; […]
The Blind Game
Last month I finally got round to sorting out some blinds for the two rooms currently without any form of window dressing. My friend Anna had recommended somewhere, so I called to arrange a visit from one of their sales team. Before they arrived, Anna advised me on how to play The Blind Game. ‘Don’t […]
The behaviour chart
This is our behaviour chart. Impressive, isn’t it? It was drawn up one weekend when the disproportionate ratio of tantrums to coping strategies became too much to bear, and the rain had flooded us out of the park once again. I have never been a fan of sticker charts. This is partly because I loathe […]