"I think all mothers suffer from Mammy Guilt at one time or another – you’d want to be made of steel not to. I don’t think that should stop women going out to work though – many women need to work for their mental health too. I certainly do. I feel I’m a more balanced ...
It's October 13th as I write this, and I'm thinking about what I was doing this time fifteen years ago. Checking the weather forecast (still rain). Checking the dress (still there). Checking the mass booklets (still not done). A last lunch with my first (and hopefully last) husband-to-be. The mood? Surreal. A little nervous. Very excited. And ...
Once upon a time, six years ago this month in fact, I spotted a newspaper feature on an old school pal. The article was about her career - she was and is a successful Qualitative Researcher with three kids, a husband, and a home in San Francisco. What struck me though, was that while she had ...
Facing into a bout of temporary solo parenting, I had one and only one worry on my mind. It probably should have been mornings - how I'd get them in to school on time. My husband does most of the morning stuff while I amble from room to room telling various children to get up, then stand ...
Back at the turn of the century (the turn of this one I mean, I'm not here since the 1900s, despite what my kids think) I was working in my first job, and at the time, there was a preoccupation with productivity. Predicting it. Measuring it. Improving it. You can't manage what you can't measure, ...
Five years ago when we first went to Tayto Park, I admit, I was confused. Was it a playground with a zoo attached? Or a zoo with a playground attached? Our kids were too small for any of the rides, and I don't remember seeing any rollercoasters - I was too busy trying not to lose sight of ...
We're half-way through. It's a bit soon for jumping to conclusions, and I'm tempting fate by writing this, and it's all going to fall apart this week just because I wrote this down. But then again, if I don't stop and acknowledge that it's happening, I might never believe that it did. September is usually HELL in ...
"We'll fit loads in over the next few weeks," I'd said to the kids two weekends ago, not wanting to say what I really meant, which was, "There are only twelve more days left of summer holidays, let's make the most of it." Because I didn't want them on the countdown that I was already ...
Two years ago, we managed to have the most unexpectedly perfect time on a two-night trip to London with the kids. Unexpected, because the kids were five, eight, and nine at the time, and I didn't think a city break would work. But we were visiting my sister and her family, so the way I ...
“We’ve been here six times,” said the woman behind me in the queue at the bakery, “and now we’re afraid to go anywhere different in case it’s not as good.” This was in Cambrils in Spain, and she wasn’t the only one who said it. One family reportedly rented the same house in Cambrils every ...