The other day I had one of those moments – an epiphany, if you like – where I could actually see where I was along my own personal writing journey. It wasn’t a ‘hooray’ epiphany – more of a slow-hand-clap one – because always in retrospect one can’t help thinking Why didn’t I know this […]
And I was humbled… (my writing epiphany) Read More »
Okay, so this won’t be a stunningly original post, but I still feel it’s necessary. I look back at 2014 and words like ‘overwhelming’, ‘upsetting’ and ‘super-busy’ come to mind (all mainly with negative connotations) as I struggled to come to the decision to let go of my involvement with the charity La Leche League
Looking back, looking forward Read More »
Having just now come to an end of a period of mentorship I am taking a break. I am in an ‘interlude’. For the past year I’ve been a mentor to a wonderful woman. The year before that I mentored another remarkable woman. Without going into too much detail, I wanted to write about what
The Mentor’s Journey (Interlude) Read More »
There are always times of increase and times of decrease. I guess they roughly follow the shape of a sine wave: up and down, up and down, up and down. It’s particularly in those ‘down times’ that we look to the future, that we hope that, “This time next year we’ll be millionaires.” (I’m a
Begone all spooks! Read More »
When I was about fifteen or sixteen, I had to write a kind of list poem for my English studies. I think I called it something like ‘Nervousness’ and it was a whole list of things that made me feel ‘nervousness’. My teacher corrected me, writing that ‘anxiety’ was a better word to use. She
Before we went on holiday last month I was exhausted. There were a lot of loose ends to tie up work-wise, writing-wise, art-wise and the inevitable huge list of chores to do before we were suitably ready to finally leave the house… I was very ready for a holiday. I took my laptop with me
Overwhelm and holidays Read More »
Last weekend we didn’t really need to be anywhere, so we decided to catch up with the gardening. While the two little ones harvested strawberries and raspberries, waved bamboo canes around and dug holes in the soil I weeded, pruned and then thinned the carrots. This task – the thinning of the carrots — is a
Welcome to the April 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Family Pastimes This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared stories and wisdom about family pastimes. *** What came first, the chicken or the egg? That’s a
The ‘Art’ of Having Fun Read More »
I don’t know what it is about spring, or rather, I don’t know what it is about this particular time in my life right now (which happens to coincide with spring), but I’m feeling good about getting more writing ‘out there’. No doubt it’ll boomerang right on back to me, but the main thing, I
Various fairy tales, the Brambly Hedge stories by Jill Barklem, The Three Musketeers by Dumas, Core Maths by Bostock and Chandler, Organic Chemistry by MacMurray, The Professor by Charlotte Bronte, Possession by AS Byatt, The Birth Book by Sears, The Baby Book by Sears, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by La Leche League International, the
Currently Reading: Quiet Read More »