It’s nearly 6 o’clock in the morning, I’m sitting on my terrace, listening to the sounds of the birds as they call out their morning song to each other. But today I’m a lot sadder listening to them and looking around me at our beautiful view. Because just half an hour ago Hubs and I got up early to wave you both off to the airport, Mum and Dad.… Read more
On the 11th September 2001 I was pulling into the car park of ED, the discount supermarket where I did some of my shopping in France, when I heard the DJ interrupt the music on the radio to announce that an aeroplane had crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York.… Read more
To my darling C,
It is your 3rd birthday today and I wanted to mark this day with an open letter, like I did last year and the year before. This letter won’t mean much to you now but I’m hoping that it’s something you will enjoy reading when you are older, and I know I like looking back on these letters and remembering how you were at different stages.… Read more
It was about 6 o’clock in the evening and for once the news was on. My 8 year old daughter was sitting next to me, and she watched with me as families in Budapest tried desperately to get on to a train.
“What’s going on?” she asked me. “Why won’t they let them get on the train?… Read more
I’ve written in the past about making changes and taking risks, but I think this time we’ve exceeded what’s normal even for us!
For those who read this blog frequently you will have noticed the extreme lack of blogging this year, that would be because my life has been ridiculously busy dealing with decisions we have made.… Read more
I haven’t blogged in a long time because I just haven’t had time. You see we’ve made a life-changing decision (which I will blog about at some point) to leave London and move to Mauritius. I don’t want to go into that now because that’s not what this blog post is about, the whole story about our move will come later.… Read more
Around this time last year I donned a red onesie, a top hat and a moustache and I walked around London in the cold, wind and rain for over 8 hours to raise money for Sport Relief via Team Honk. The weather was miserable and my body ached with the effort, but it was so worth it when we saw that our team had raised over £3,000 for the sports version of Comic Relief.… Read more
When you’re a child you make friends at school, and as you get older friends come from university or jobs. Then the one point in your life when you really need friends who know what you’re going through – motherhood – you get stuck. It’s very rare that your existing, local, friends are having children at the same time as you, so becoming a mum can be quite a lonely time.… Read more
I’m not one for new year’s resolutions. I learnt many many years ago that they’re a recipe for failure. However I am one for goals and dreams. Around about this time last year I blogged about mine and Hubs’s plans for 2014. It was scary to commit my goals to “paper”, and then to share them with the world, but it makes you far more accountable and likely to achieve your goals.… Read more
This time last year I kept seeing people on social media talking about reading a book a week – which I knew I could never do. But then I saw another challenge, to read 52 books a year. Which I thought I might just manage. You see I quite often read a book in a day, if it’s a me day or when I’m on holiday, but then other books can take me 3 or 4 weeks to read.… Read more