I'm walking the dog with my daughter realising it's muddier than we'd thought and talking Christmas puddings. "Why do you make two every year?" she asks "So that we have a spare" "For what? An unexpected Christmas?" I do it because my mother did it. Every year there is one pudding … [Read more...] about After The Beginning, Before The End.
Meaning
The Stoppable Rise Of Technology
I have an app on my phone that identifies birdsong so that when I am walking through the woods I can tell a woodpecker from a robin. Every so often it insists on playing an advert that ironically makes me much less likely to buy whatever it is selling and makes me too bitter and resentful to buy … [Read more...] about The Stoppable Rise Of Technology
Wild Geese
I'm in self-isolation and I've noticed that my chutzpah at having to stay in permanently might have been somewhat misplaced. Currently, I'm well and that's certainly something to be thankful for but, under those circumstances, being confined to home is surprisingly unsettling. The thing I miss … [Read more...] about Wild Geese
A Death In The Family
My mother-in-law died this week at the end of a decline that felt much longer than it was. She left the room where my children were nursed as babies, where I read "The House At Pooh Corner" to my son so many nights in a row that I no longer needed the book. She left while nobody was looking, … [Read more...] about A Death In The Family
Working On Thoughts About Death
I'm hunched over my laptop preparing for an online conference by completing an exercise on attitudes to death. I'm writing about how I'm fine talking about death because I feel like I experienced quite a lot of it growing up although, as I write, I realise I also think about it a lot. My … [Read more...] about Working On Thoughts About Death