26 Jan

Posted at 17:23h in Uncategorised
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I have been writing this post for months. It is an idea i can't get away from. But I find the big truths hard to articulate. It is about life and death. About how the whole of my life here on this earth, is a series of little deaths and re-births. A never-ending procession of darkness and then slowly, the light again. The stuff I have been stumbling through over the last few years has been one huge mess of an ending, and slowly, cautiously, I have turned the first page of a new book. At some point, and it happened gradually at first,...

15 Jan

Posted at 13:01h in Uncategorised
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Thursday is quit day. Because life is too short to keep doing things that you don't want to or need to do. Could be something small. Quit having sugar in your tea. Quit biting your nails. Could be something big. Quit feeling guilty about every single little thing. Quit being tough on yourself. Quit being cautious. Quit your job. Quit doing something that takes up precious time or energy and serves no good purpose. Quit procrastinating with the mundane.* I quit something today. Well officially, i didn't quit it, I turned it down. As a freelancer I have this continual fight with thinking that if i...

12 Jan

Posted at 18:04h in Uncategorised
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Whilst making the tea tonight I noticed this: If you have children and access to an Ikea store, you will know this is an Ikea high chair. A permanent fixture in my kitchen for a lot of the last 10 years. It has recently been unearthed from the garage, wiped of dust and dirt and used to hold various small relatives over the Christmas period. It does not live in my kitchen as it once did. In the light of the lamp with an instagram filter on it, it looked like a still life. Which is a great phrase isn't it? Still life. Wouldn't it be...

29 Dec

Posted at 16:38h in Uncategorised
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This week Matt and I got to watch something on TV, in the afternoon as the kids played upstairs. In our house this is also known as a miracle. We watched an episode of the Foo Fighters documentary series 'Sonic Highways'. In this programme, the band go to different cities in America, and at the end of a week write a song which is lyrically inspired by their time there. The episode we watched was about Seattle. For anyone who spent their teenage years listening to Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, the importance of Seattle is huge. It is the birth...

28 Sep

Posted at 20:25h in Uncategorised
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I've just done that thing. I've just sat in the bathroom, whilst I waited for the bath to fill, and scrolled through twitter on my phone. Looking through the twitter feed of the last 48 hours, I felt sad. And just a little bit sorry for myself… For all the things I haven't done this weekend. I wasn't part of a large theatrical city-based game, which looked both good fun and great quality, that friends of mine had created and produced. Today, I am not at the 50th birthday celebrations for the theatre where I have been lucky enough the find some work in...

24 Jul

Posted at 14:02h in Uncategorised
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This week Matt has taken the kids to the Lake District with his Mum and his sister. I've been on my own for 6 days. It has been a lovely week, of catching up with old friends and taking life at my own pace. But on Monday something rather bad happened. I was driving to see my good friend LP, to go out for a cup of tea in the sunshine. Without kids. I did the necessary U-turn on Aigburth Road, to get to her house. As I turned my car I heard a thud and as I looked to the pavement to...

02 Jul

Posted at 09:32h in Uncategorised
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Feel free to read along, but this is for me. Exhaustion fuelled anxiety is trying to edge its way back in after a month of birthdays, and charity fun-runs, and matt being away a lot, and painful secondary school open evenings, and my youngest waking most days between 5 and 6 am. Unsurprisingly I have found my heart racing and my stomach churning again. Not recognising the 'overload' button soon enough is dangerous. But i am catching myself now, just in time. I am not allowing the guilt and failure filled lies; 'why can't i cope?...

27 Jun

Posted at 21:50h in Uncategorised
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Parenthood has taught me a lot about failure. My two girls both potty trained in 3 days at two and a half years old. I knew how to do it. It wasn't complicated. If you followed a plan and were consistent - it was straight forward. Then came Ed and after four months of attempting to potty train, for his third birthday I gave him the gift of nappies (again). My early experience and success had made me some what cocky, and probably if i am honest, a little judegmental of all those who couldn't get this basic parenting rite-of-passage sorted...