Sitting in the garden I’m comfortable until the sun pokes its head over the top of next doors roof. Suddenly bathed in the reflection from the whitewashed back wall it’s too hot, and it’s mid September. By now I am expecting the end of the summer but it’s clinging on. Despite the definite chill in […]

I’m coming down with a cold. I felt it when I woke up this morning, the itchy throat, the blocked nose. When we’re sick people tend to treat us differently, and illness brings upon us an altered persona which makes others react in a different and often more positive way. Sometimes it feels as if […]

My relationship with Kate Walsh, a singer songwriter from Brighton, wasn’t real, except to me. She seemed to write songs which consistently resonated deeply, perhaps because of all that was going on in my life at that time, like a coincidental unexpected alignment of the stars. Whatever it was her impact on me was deep […]

During the 1980’s my friend Martin developed an interesting habit of simply disappearing at some point during an evening out without saying a word to anyone. One minute he’d be there and the next he’d be gone. It became an expected punctuation in the evening. “Where’s Martin?” “He must have gone”, and then we’d just […]

Travelling on a train from Broadstairs my friend asks me whether my training and experience have helped me navigate more easily the tricky waters of human relationships. Without hesitating to consider the question, because it is one with which I am so familiar, I find myself answering more eloquently than ever before. Perhaps my certainty […]

Driving to an orthodontist appointment Beth remarks somewhat wistfully, “We’re halfway through the summer holidays and it feels as if they’ve only just started”. That’s the thing with time, it passes more quickly than most of us would like, especially when we’re doing things we enjoy or even nothing much at all. Yet another birthday […]

Toffee died this week. She was a rabbit and she’d been through a lot. It’s not what they achieve or their practical input to our lives that make animals or people valuable, it is much more often the influence they have over the way that we behave and think about ourselves and our life. That’s […]

Last night I was watching a recent episode of “Comic Relief Does Bake Off” with my daughter. One of the contestants was a woman who seemed completely bereft of any confidence in her baking ability. A constant stream of self deprecation came tumbling from her mouth and, unsurprisingly, she narrowly lost the contest. For many […]

This week, after a number of random conversations about how difficult it is to lose weight I had written a post about how easy it is to lose weight. Then I heard that Sally Brampton had died. Sally Brampton was an editor, columnist, author and, most notably for me, writer of a book called “Shoot […]

I was a fat kid at school and nobody thinks much about bullying fat kids. If there is a benefit to being bullied it is that early on we learn a lot about real friendship, and that people who appear to be your friends may not be there anymore when there is nothing tangible left […]