We’re in the garage preparing for a long-overdue run to the tip. Logs are piled in scant preparation for a hard winter that may well be more severe than we care to think about. My son hauls a filthy sports bag down from a shelf next to boxes of an album I made a decade […]
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Sitting at the dining table with empty plates in front of us I can feel the dog lying on my feet out of sight, hopeful. A familiar discussion strikes up. “How many chocolate puddings are left?” my son asks his girlfriend. “I think there are two. How many have you had?” “I had one yesterday. […]
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Clearing a space on the desk in front of me I have all the tools I need to change the strings on a guitar. The thing is, I’ve had this odd anxiety about re-stringing creeping over me recently and I feel a lot of shame about it. Who on earth feels nervous about changing the […]
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Cleaning the shelves I’ve removed all of the considerable numbers of books and immediately regretted my chutzpah whilst realising I have massively underestimated the amount of time it will take me to do it properly. I decided to begin when I grew tired of waiting for a response from my web host’s customer support team. […]
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The dog has taken to sleeping on the bed, pushed up hard against me leaving no space while she sprawls at all angles, snoring loudly. I always said she’d never be allowed on the bed but her life is short. It disturbs my sleep but rising early in these warm mornings I soon shrug it […]
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The legendary TV artist Bob Ross has popped up several times this week making me wonder if he had a message for me from beyond the grave. First, I saw a post about him on social media, then I came across an article about why he is still popular so many years after his death. […]
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The sticky overwhelming night bears down on me making sleep all but impossible. The dog shifts from place to place, the floor, the bed, downstairs, the bed, the floor, always picking her way around the cool mat, the one place she might find some peace. I consider curling up on it myself. A tall broad […]
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My daughter is learning to drive and I’m giving her practice in my son’s car. “Don’t crash it,” he says as she flips the keys from the hook by the front door. She ignores him while I think how incredibly unhelpful his comment is to a nervous driver, especially one who is about to take […]
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It’s Saturday evening and I have no idea what I’m going to write here this week. Usually, I can look back over the past days and something emerges but today? Nothing. I scrape the ice from the bottom shelf of the constantly malfunctioning freezer with a palette knife and then the door won’t shut so, […]
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I’m walking with my sister up the narrow path which leads into the park. It’s not yet 8 am but I can feel the strength of the sun on the backs of my legs as the dog pulls to one side trying to get hold of a half-eaten apple. In the park, a few people […]
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