Just trying to keep my balance…
Friday night. We told the kids it was time for bed and switched off the TV. My husband picked up the small boy and swung him around a bit to make him laugh but mostly to carry him up the stairs because it's easier than telling him four hundred times to go up himself. My ...
Anyone who knows me in real life will know that I'm not exactly horizontal in the chilled out stakes. I'm somewhere between about 45 and 80 degrees. And depending on the situation (organising a kid's party, organising a barbecue, trying to get out the door when we have a babysitter...) I'm really quite the opposite ...
Sun and showers and sun showers, school runs snaking in and out between parked cars, windows down, temperatures up, singing voices raised, tempers frayed. June is everywhere and we are exhausted. It's time to wind down towards summer holidays, but at this time of year, it always feels like it's ramping up instead. Not the homework, ...
I need to make a confession. I hate driving. I avoid driving beyond my local comfort zone if at all possible. And I never, ever (deliberately) drive on motorways. On a number of occasions in the last few years, I've decided that I need to be brave, and I've made journeys to places far, far ...
It was one of those weeks - everyone had an upset of some sort. Nothing big - just little things that are tough to deal with when you're five or seven or nine years of age. Or twenty-one-and-a-good-bit and all your kids are upset. On Friday morning, after a particularly fraught start to the day, my husband ...
When you were born, I didn't know why you cried. I carried you night and day, thinking I was doing something wrong, but now I understand, you just wanted to be near me, as newborn babies do. It's so very obvious in hindsight. And 20 months later when your sister was born, I thought you were ...
We run along the path, glimpses of blue bobbing up and down in time with our steps. Down we go to the edge of the road, then we wait for the green man to stop the slow-moving but determined traffic. Across, and they keep running, but I stop for a moment, because there it is, stretching out ahead. ...
Once upon a time, booking a trip meant googling and trip-advisoring and searching and checking and reading every single review on the internet before finally deciding on what we hoped would be the perfect spot. But now, there’s no time for researching, and short-cuts are required, so my new modus operandi is to take the first ...
Queuing's not much craic really, is it? I was trying to think of times when it's fun - maybe lining up to go into a night club? Something I can just about remember from a very long time ago. Or waiting to go into a concert? Maybe. But your average queue isn't fun, and certainly ...
This time two years ago, I said goodbye to my IFSC office for good, and set out to give freelancing a go for six months. At that point I would decide if it was working or not - or if I'd have to dust off the CV and try to get back into financial services. In ...