Unblocking

Laurie Penny posted a beautiful piece this morning in The New Statesman about her father dying and how it’s affected her relationship with the written word, and this struck such a chord.  When dad died, I was writing at the time in the form of a diary of my pregnancy with Katie, which kind of inadvertently became a chronicle about the process of dying. 

Poetry and Vine on Dylan's Birthday

I’m Welsh.  It’s something I forget about most of the time, but then something reminds you that it’s a part of your soul and no matter how long you live in another country is as natural as breathing.

Talking and Speech Therapy

One half-term in, and the blogging has been one of many casualties.  Teaching this term has turned out to be unexpected in all kinds of ways.  But that’s for another day.  The first half-term in a school year always brings changes and adjustments.  So, where to start with this one …?

Dog Days of Summer

Every year, without fail, come the end of summer I feel maudlin.  No more unstructured days together, shared jokes, and easiness in each other’s company. 

Harry Potter Studio Tours

We didn’t make any holiday plans this year because of the precarious job situation, and also because we’re nominally in the process of decorating the kids’ rooms – one of the most self-defeating tasks in the world with a two-year old about, in case you were wondering. 

Potty Training, Mark III

It is fair to say that potty-training is my least favourite part of babydom.  Give me sleepless nights any time, at least there is the charade of it being character-building and Dunkirk-spirit to get you through. 

Mind the Gap

I haven’t been in a very blogging kind of place recently.  My job’s ending, which seems to involve wall-to-wall conflicting deadlines. 
Added to that the summer holidays has the magical effect of both dropping my productivity down to zero and ensuring the house remains a cesspit (sometimes quite literally, as we are existing in the purgatory of potty training). 

Saying goodbye

Three years ago my father died and I wrote this.  Today it was possible to read it again.

A Harry Potter Party for Harry!

First things first. If you’re looking for tips on how to run a professional-ish Harry Potter party – of which I’ve seen some fairly jaw-dropping examples on the internet over the past few weeks – then this blog is probably not going to be your salvation.

Counting down to redundancy

I got my official redundancy letter yesterday.  After the obligatory half hour crying in the undergraduate toilets (they’ve got exams on, no-one uses them), I pulled myself together and started focusing my energies on WHAT THE HELL I’M GOING TO DO NEXT.  Since my rather broken and stupidly specialised career path has meant that there are now about 3 jobs in the UK that I could realistically do, this a task somewhat less satisfying than banging one’s head repeatedly against a brick wall for 6 hours.