It was suggested this week that we take the CDs to the charity shop. “What, all of them?” I ask without fully understanding why a partial clear out feels less uncomfortable than getting rid of the whole lot. I don’t even have a CD player any longer. When my mother died she left a house […]
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My daughter has been having relationship problems recently culminating in a painful breakup which isn’t quite a breakup. “I think he’s afraid of getting hurt somewhere down the line, so he’s trying to minimise it by breaking up now” she says. I’ve heard many similar excuses for bewildering behaviour in the name of progress but […]
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I’m in London to have my eye checked and early for my appointment deliberately so that I have time to take the walk along the Thames between Embankment and Borough Market, buy coffee and cheese, then walk back along the river to Westminster. It’s half term and there are countless parents pointing out landmarks to […]
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I’d begun to wonder whether there would be any chance of cutting the grass again before Spring, so relentless has the rainy weather been this week. Then it stopped and the wind came blowing through to dry the ground briefly, just long enough that I could tidy the garden and harvest the three remaining pumpkins. […]
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When I was a kid I was, for a time, a member of the Young Ornithologists Club, essentially a birdwatching society for children who got bullied in the playground. Recalling it during a conversation with my sister I tell her, “I used to go to meetings run by a woman called Mrs. Bird (true) on […]
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A couple of weeks ago I took my daughter for some blood tests and, on the journey, we were discussing how the last time I had taken her for some she’d had a complete meltdown in the waiting room and then again when she’d got in to see the nurse. Consequently, she does everything she […]
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I’ve been getting into a lot of arguments recently on both Twitter and the comments threads of blogs I follow. This week some random woman was trying to argue that it’s impossible to compare the Hong Kong protests with Greta Thunberg’s trip to the US on board a boat. Her premise seemed to be that, […]
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When I’m out with my sister walking the dogs our conversation invariably turns to childhood. This week, for reasons I can’t recall, we were talking about desserts. “I don’t remember mum making many desserts,” I said. “Apart from the chocolate sponge with chocolate sauce.” My sister was incredulous and proceeded to spend the majority of […]
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My daughter is sharing with me her reading list for university and bemoaning the cost of the textbooks in the way that one would if one were actually having to pay for them. I tell her about how I remember my own study books being astronomically expensive but how I really loved buying them all […]
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I’m driving my daughter to Canterbury for her first Fresher’s event. She’s doing her makeup in the passenger seat and I’m wondering why I agreed to collect her again later when the club ends, at 2 am tomorrow morning. “How are you feeling?” I ask “I’m fine. I’m a bit..” “Trepidatious?” I offer. She grunts […]
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