July 12, 2020
My daughter is feeding ice cream to her grandmother, now too weak to feed herself. “It’s hard to see the people who looked after us not able to look after themselves,” I say. She agrees, but she’s happy to do it. It reminds me of having to help my father get out of the bath […]
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July 5, 2020
For the thirteen years since the death of my mother a huge collection of 35mm photographic slides have been sitting in the garage on a shelf, waiting for me. Having cleared out her house after she died, a task which took me and my two siblings the best part of a year, I couldn’t face […]
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June 28, 2020
It’s 5 am, still too hot for sleep, and I find myself wide awake hearing the patter of welcome raindrops falling against the window. I feel both grateful for a respite from the heat and a pang of regret that I left the washing out all night. I get up, go out into the garden, […]
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June 22, 2020
Last weekend my son sustained head trauma. Someone punched him so hard it broke his mastoid and, as he fell he hit and cut his head. For two days there was blood coming from his ear, he couldn’t keep a glass of water down, and he was so dizzy he couldn’t get himself off the […]
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June 14, 2020
“What do you think of the statues being taken down?” I ask my children while we’re doing the washing up. “I don’t know why we have statues at all,” says my daughter. “It’s hard to know where to draw the line. I guess nobody is all bad,” I say. My son is straight back with, […]
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