To All My Sisters

Tomorrow is International Women’s Day. A chance to celebrate the women in your life. It’s a day to celebrate all of the achievements women have made – achievements that impact us personally, historically, economically, scientifically, politically and culturally. It’s a day to look with pride at the women around us, holding up the world, to…

A Christmas cake wish

gold stars glittering in shafts of light

Something about this time of year lends itself to exclamations – or is that just me? It is time to make the Christmas cake!!!! Facebook memories tells me I’m behind the curve, - in 2018 apparently, I’d time to crystalise oranges and lemons to make homemade German Lebkuchen. To be fair they were magnificent Lebkuchen…

In the dead of the night dark deeds are planned.

a cartoon of a couple in bed. One of them is snoring, the other is sat up swearing.

3.48 am. I am incandescent with rage. No that’s not right. I’m too tired for incandescent, more a dark glowing ember, burning slowly, threatening to set fire to the bedsheets. What is going on, I hear you ask?  Are you ok?   Well, no! I’m not ok! My husband, the gentle, chilled out man who…

The one where we get the lurgy.

Seasonal Illness Stickers by Michele Bruttomesso is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 I came home from London with covid.  It has not been the one where people say it was just like a bad cold and didn’t stop them doing much – a weird combination of bragging about the strength of their immune system, combined with…

Every day is a chance to celebrate.

Star Trek Communicator Badge (badge) by Unknown maker is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 Today is National Caramel Day. – I don’t know where? Everywhere, I guess? Are you prepared? Do you have a box of caramels, robed in chocolate, soft and sticky enough to rip a filling out? Are you planning on making caramel sauce…

Saving the day, one pudding at a time

I’ve been thinking about school dinners today. I think we’re divided into those who loved school dinners and those who did not. I loved my school dinners. A hungry child, I loved the smell of cooking wafting up the hallways after break. The scent of puddings baking, dinners roasting, was almost too much to bear…

International Women’s Day

Why I celebrate international women’s day. I’ve always celebrated International women’s day – today 8th March. I worked in a women’s refuge in my late teens, and it taught me the solidarity of women and the difficulties many of us face. International women’s day has always been a time to celebrate, always been a time…

Going home

The river is resplendent in the colours of the season. Oak leaves turn biscuit brown, the Gelder Rose a dark lipstick pink, deepens to vermillion. Field Maples litter leaves the colour of sunshine, while Lime, leaves limp like hankies, drip to the floor. The Willow, luxuriating in a great unrobing, scatters its leaves across the…