Poet Edward Young famously called procrastination ‘the thief of time,’ although I can’t imagine the distractions available to him in the 1700s were on a par with my own favourite online diversionary activities. I thrive on deadlines, so when I’m really up against it you won’t catch me procrastinating at all: I’ll have my nose […]
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Guest post: The Missing One, by Lucy Atkins
I recently read The Missing One by debut novelist, Lucy Atkins, which comes out on 16 January. It is a compelling and at times uneasy read, about a woman looking for the truth about her mother, and I couldn’t put it down. I enjoyed it so much I asked Lucy to explain how the story […]
The start of a new year
When you are a parent of school-age children the year divides itself automatically into term-sized chunks, and the winter break has always been my favourite. Not only because of Christmas, which fills our house with magic, but because the whole world seems to stop for two weeks. The phone doesn’t ring, there are no meetings […]
The Night Before Christmas: a poem for parents
It’s the night before Christmas and all through the land, Mothers are pacing, the wine close to hand. Have we bought enough presents? Have we got the right ones? Is Rupert too little to play with Nerf guns? When’s your mother arriving? How long is she staying? She always drinks more when she’s not the […]
Five Christmas Cards You Really Shouldn't Send
Surely it’s time to ditch the Christmas cards? Rising postage costs; the ever-decreasing rain forests; that slipped disk Postie got last year… despite all the reasons not to, we still waste time and money giving a card to people we see every day. If you simply MUST write them, here are five cards you really […]
There is a punch line to grief
There is a punch line to grief that no one tells you. You won’t find it in the leaflets you clutch as you leave the hospital, or in the waiting room when you go to register the death. It won’t be in the platitudes from family and friends, or in the order of service you […]