I spend far too much time moaning about my children, and not nearly enough time appreciating and enjoying them. After all, does it really matter that, thanks to an application of crayon, my decor is more shabby than chic? Or that, thanks to a couple of natural twin deliveries, I have lady-bits that would put […]
Blog
Having a dog and barking yourself
The Nanny started last week, in preparation for The Big Return to Work. Having staff is a whole new experience for me; I find it difficult even to ask the window cleaner to do the pane he has missed, or to suggest to the builders that a three hour tea break may be a little […]
Dear Burglar
My next door neighbour was burgled last night. This is a major event for the entire street; we are all middle-aged people in a middle class street, in a town which has the lowest crime rate in the South of England. Based on the theory that criminals often return to the scene of the crime […]
The hidden cost of children
A friend of mine asked me recently, “so just how much do children cost?” It brought to mind a colleague who, after discovering his girlfriend was unexpectedly pregnant, calculated optimistically that a mere £6 a week was required to sustain this future child. I would love to track him down, some seven or eight years […]
Waiting Room
Day Five,originally uploaded by ~Prescott. You see the same plastic, hard-backed chairs in any other waiting room, but the tension here is palpable, and the atmosphere rarified. The room is full of couples – the occasional same-sex pair, the odd lone female, but mostly couples; holding hands as though this show of solidarity alone is […]
Becoming a working girl
No, I’m not planning to drop my (considerably more expansive post-children) knickers and go on the game (it’s not an issue of morals; the pension plan just doesn’t measure up to the public sector) but I do need to re-join the rat race. I left work in 2006 when, six months into my first pregnancy, […]