Just trying to keep my balance…
When I was about thirteen, I remember reading Flowers in the Attic and realising pretty quickly that it was a good thing my parents didn't know what it was about. I'd been stopped from reading Judy Blume's Forever a few years ago, and had learned to be more careful about revealing my reading choices. It's ...
I need to preface this post with a caveat: we went to Union Lido campsite in Italy for the second part of a two-centre holiday, the first part of which was spent in Bella Italia. We had an incredible time in Bella Italia, and had agreed that it didn’t matter that our mobile was fairly ...
Looking through old photos in my dad's house one afternoon, I found a picture I had never seen before. It was taken in the early 80's and showed a group of us on picnic at the beach. Studying it gave me a surge of nostalgia for a time I don't remember at all, and made me wish for ...
"So where are you off to?" my child's teacher asked, as we chatted about holidays. “To a mobile home in a campsite in Italy,” I said. “Oh, is it Bella Italia? I went there when I was ten,” the teacher replied, and that was when I realised for the first time that Bella Italia had been around ...
What makes a holiday? Is it time off work, or time to yourself, or time with the kids, or a break from the kids? Is it time to read your first book this year or time to get through six? Sunbathing or swimming or sliding or sailing or sleeping? Time off social media, or time ...
Exactly two years ago this week, I was on this same beach (give or take a bit of sand) when I saw a woman in a deckchair and almost took her photo. Then I got worried - what if I shared her photo online and it had unexpected repercussions on her life or mine? So I didn't ...
There’s something about the train. This is, granted, mostly if you almost never get the train. I suspect if you get it every day, there are frustrations like crowded platforms and delays and never getting a seat. But for people like me who only get trains every now and then, it’s very much an adventure ...
I was going to call this Snapshot of a woman on the edge but that was just too melodramatic for what really comes down to wishing away the long, final days of school before the summer starts. So it's a snapshot from the cusp instead - from one tired mother to all the tired mothers, ...
I'm a bit fragile today. It's a little bit down to last night's wine and tapas - the ratio of rioja to patatas bravas was not in my favour. But it's a lot down to the Last Supper - the goodbye dinner with the mums from my middle child's class. After four lovely years together, we're breaking ...
I am the mean-mom who doesn't let my kids have new toys when it's not Christmas or birthdays, despite the fact that every single child in the school goes to Smyths EVERY SUNDAY to buy new toys - these are the same children who apparently all have their own YouTube channels, own iPhones, are allowed ...