Staring at the stud wall I’m trying to conceal my anxiety. My daughter asked me to put up a shelf for her some weeks ago but I’m nervous about using the right fixings and making sure it doesn’t fall off again. “I just need to charge the drill,” I say, playing for time and cursing […]
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My son went back into his office this week for the first time in many months. “Have you got everything?” Peering into his bag, “Rail pass, laptop charger, wallet, I think so.” “Passport?” He seemed genuinely excited like he was going on holiday. The children have been sanguine about time out from the lives they […]
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I think I always knew that I don’t like goat’s cheese but it’s only relatively recently that I came to realise I don’t need to. Some years ago, before that epiphany, I was on holiday and a persuasive man in a French market told me that he had a hard goat’s cheese which would convert […]
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Sitting in the waiting room at the hospital I am thinking about a question I was sent by a young man who has moved cities to start a new job and feels that none of his co-workers like him. He writes that however cheery and pleasant he is he remains an outsider and convinced that […]
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I’ve realised this week that I have become a weekday vegetarian. I only know this because on Wednesday nobody felt like cooking and the children decided to get take-out from Nando’s. “What do you want?” my son asks me as I’m flicking through the menu on my phone. “Umm, I’ll have the Beanie Burger” My […]
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I’ve been researching and writing a piece on “Hustle Culture” this week which has taken a lot more time than I’d anticipated. As a consequence, I have got behind with my other work. One evening, after we’ve cleared the dinner plates I say, “I’ve got to finish an “Ask A Therapist” question that was due […]
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I’ve taken a commission to write a series of blog posts for a mental-health organisation and I’m telling my daughter about it as we make tomato sauce for pasta. “What do they want you to write about?” “Issues at the intersection of work and mental health” “You struggle to find enough ideas to write your […]
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In a heated argument with her brother about the most appropriate distribution of an excellent batch of double chocolate muffins, my daughter pushes back until it becomes a bit too much, at which point she reluctantly retreats, tearful. She goes upstairs into the bathroom pursued shortly afterwards by her mother. Later in the week, I […]
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I’m buying tickets for a gig, clicking through the various screens like I used to do, in the before times. It feels surreal, the imagining of a crowded room, the floor sticky with spilled beer, and the smell of sweat and perfume. This past year I have learned not to expect anything, yet I am […]
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I arrive early for my vaccine appointment unable to escape the nagging belief that lateness will result in a refusal to put the long-awaited needle into my arm. I am led through the car park and around the back by a volunteer from The Rotary Club. The gardens have changed since I last visited, the […]
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