The importance of memoir. Shonda Rhimes and saying YES


books, hope

I love Shonda Rhimes. She is a Titan, as anyone who has seen her amazing TED talk will attest. A mega-God, a master of words and someone who has found and lost her spark in her career.  Shonda is a showrunner responsible for creating TV including Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, How To Get Away With […]

18th June 2020

In Memoriam – Part II


family & parenting

My 6 year old son is more sentimental about the past than his Great Grandmother who was born in 1920. And yet… he combines this nostalgia (for when he was a small boy, that day when I let him have 3 polos, the time he found a stick in the park, the birthday party three […]

25th May 2014

Snow joking matter


family & parenting

Don’t worry, this isn’t an obligatory ‘we had a charming day in the snow’ post. Not that I didn’t enjoy some blogs over the last few weeks, or see some amazing pictures posted all over t’interweb showing kids in cute wellies, cheeks glowing in the cold, tableaux after tableaux of smiling through damp socks. On […]

22nd February 2012

It had its moments…


family & parenting

Our holiday is over and we are back in the whirl, and the occasional birdsong floating through the sunny afternoon quiet, of our city home. Spider-boy is back at nursery and Thathusband is back at work. So follows the post-mortems. And some questions. Are family holidays always strained? Do we remember them as more fun […]

19th May 2011

Instant faded snap shots


family & parenting

Above is an ‘instagram’ photo. A snap my husband took (and made?) with his i-phone app which allows you to play with the saturation of your digital photos, and give them a particular dated look. Smarter media analysts and philosophers of the everyday than I can debate how this speaks to a current oxymoron obsession […]

24th April 2011