OK, so, we’ve had a bit of a disaster this year with the Advent calendars. It wasn’t one of the usual troubles, either. I remembered to buy them in good time. I didn’t buy the wrong sort of chocolate (once we had all white chocolate, no one’s favourite – I totally blame the packaging – …
I was pootling about last week when a thought popped into my head and I decided to tweet it. I’m not pretending it was profound or hilarious, but it was no worse than much of the other stuff already parping around in the Twitter soup. I pressed the tweet button, but nothing happened. Then I saw …
It used to be a definite thing that people (by which I mean women) shouldn’t show their knees over the age of 30. This was, of course, when I was in my twenties. When 30 struck, I remember feeling quite daring when my knees occasionally peeped out. It was a bit of a trousery decade …
I can’t quite believe it but I’ve finally done my last parents’ evening. ‘Done’ rather than ‘attended’, because it always seems like a chore, even though I’ve always been one of the lucky ones who has been blessed (so far, I’m still crossing my fingers) with hard-working and really rather lovely children. For some reason, …
I love the wonderful cat pictures pouring out of the Brussels lockdown. Having been told not to mention raids on social media, so as not to alert the terrorists to police movements, some cities would have put down their phones, stayed in and watched telly. Not the doughty Bruxellois. They’ve tweeted ever more extravagant images …
It was my book club meeting this week, and our lovely hostess for the night was a little worried. “I burned our cake, left it in the oven too long …..” The cake was completely delicious and not overdone at all. It was a lovely crumble-style affair with a pistachio and hazelnut topping, cinnamon inside …
The Winter’s Tale has never been my favourite Shakespeare play. I did it for A level and it really stretched my enthusiasm for English lit. I’ve never opened the book again. But when a lovely friend said she had tickets for the new Kenneth Branagh/Judi Dench production at the Garrick Theatre in London, I couldn’t …
I always feel a sense of rush at this time of year. As darkness creeps up earlier each day, there’s usually a lengthening list of stuff I am not quite getting round to. I think it’s the effect of both Child One and Child Two having autumn/winter birthdays, and as soon as they are out …
A shock this morning. Our junior cat, the black one, was pottering around at breakfast as usual. I barely noticed. Then he wandered off outside – and came back with his head covered in blood and pus. Yuck! and Ouch! The poor thing. My first thought was, how on earth did that happen? My second …
I’m having a lot of trouble with my memory at the moment – I can’t remember whether I’ve told you that already – see what I mean? I’ve gradually got used to not remembering the plots of the various rom coms I watch with Child 1 and Child 2, which I think is allowable, if …