To pursue whatever you set your mind to with the joy of a six year-old child: that’s said to be how we should seek to live. This supposes that every six-year old child embraces all of life joyfully, which they probably don’t, as personality and nature come into play. Largely, though, small children do seem … Continue reading Innocence
What archetype are you living out? You will be embodying one, whacky as it might sound. Probably more than one, and you’ll outgrow it and grow into a new one, like a snake shedding its skin. We all do. We recognise archetypes in other people, but it’s harder to recognise our own. When we use phrases like: … Continue reading If The Shoe Fits
According to an Ipsos-MORI poll, a large majority of people (79%) think that there is more swearing on television now than ten years ago. And here’s another poll-generated statistic: only 55% of people trust civil servants to tell the truth. I generally skim over such statistics, for, when I read claims about the pulse of … Continue reading Avert Your Eyes
He had a coffee; I had Earl Grey. His was frothy and a bit cold, he told me; mine was too hot, so I blew on it, not that it made a whit of difference. “From England? You’re walking the whole way from the North of England to Santiago?” “Yes. The one in Spain, … Continue reading There’s a Hole in my Bucket
Yesterday, I was the recipient of a cheeky wink. It was lobbed to me as I was disembarking the train at York in a distracted flurry, trying hard not to forget my trail of accoutrements that, over two and a half hours, I had liberally deposited above me (on the rack), beside me (on the … Continue reading Wink
Choice: it is, perhaps, the single, most important determinant in how our lives turn out; in how we plough a furrow through this world. Yes, some people, often through fate of birth, are born to a life of enhanced opportunity with an array of choices before them, whilst others are born into a ready-made obstacle … Continue reading I May, I Might, I Must
Auden, Barrett-Browning, Cope, Dickinson, Eliot, Frost, Gallagher, Heaney, Ibsen, Jamie, Kinnell, Larkin, Mahon, Neruda, Owen, Plath, Qabbani, Rossetti, St Vincent Millay, Thomas, Updike, Vaughan, Wordsworth, Xenokleides, Yeats, Zephaniah. Who is your favourite? Feel free to reach beyond the 26 I’ve offered you; I was just playing the alphabet game, and, in doing so, left out … Continue reading Advent
I love a bubble. I love it in the form of fizz in a glass – whether it follows the pop of a champagne cork or the hiss of a can being opened on a summer’s day. I love it in a steaming bath where I can sink and disappear into fragrant fluffs of bubbly … Continue reading Bubbles
One of life’s biggest challenges is that of speaking up. I’m not talking about making a presentation at work, delivering a wedding speech or any of those other goose-bump inducing public-facing talks. I mean saying what needs to be said in the moment, within a small group, or maybe even one on one. In other … Continue reading Polite Conversation
Occasionally, I see angry, defiant, prickly attitudes masquerading as a form of feminism; rebelliousness without much consideration, that might just be an excuse for: ‘every man and woman for his or her self’. The feminism of, ‘Why should I make you a cup of tea, you, you…. man! Make it yourself.’ Somewhere within it, there is righteous … Continue reading Still A Woman
