My New Year’s Resolution to be a Better Parent And Teach My Child To Read

The school have sent a strongly worded email. Not just to me, I hasten to add. Clearly I’m not the only one whose waning enthusiasm for Biff, Chip and Kipper books is beginning to show. Four times a week, children must read, it says. Four times a week they must have something written in their…

Read More

In The Bleak Midwinter

At least it’s not a fridge, I say to my mother. We are just going out, and as I turn back to survey the front of the house, my eye falls on the abandoned Christmas tree sitting forlornly on the drive, waiting it out until the time in mid-January when allegedly the council will come…

Read More

How to Get Your Child To Sleep, Or Not, As The Case May Be

“Mummy, can I have my red plane?” It is 8.30pm, and Piglet has just appeared at the kitchen door, where I am trying to wolf down my dinner as quickly as possible before the next interruption.  It’s the fourth time he has made a bid for freedom from the tyranny of bedtime; the last involving…

Read More

It’s 2018 Folks, Here’s How to Be A Very Poor Excuse For An Activist

I blame Twitter.  The endless shouting match of horror, the voices of reason and justified outrage mixed in with the voices of hate and division.  The internet used to be a place where the worst thing you could do was illegally download a song you liked.  Now, it feels as though to be in the…

Read More

The First Day At School

I remember very little about my first day (or year) at school.  In fact, all I remember was that it was 1984, Madonna was riding high in the charts, and at some point my mother had a questionable bubble perm.  They also had real lipstick in the wendy house, and one day I put it…

Read More

Ode to a Faded Bugaboo

And just like that, Piglet is practically an adult. Well OK not quite, but put it this way.  I NO LONGER HAVE A PUSHCHAIR. Ever since the cold day in January 2017 when we first moved into our new abode, the trusty Bugaboo has had its place in the porch, and now the porch stands…

Read More

Dating: Am I Bitter?

So we are finally back in this place. The place I hoped I would never go back to.  The hell that is online dating. I have tried to enjoy dating, I really have.  I have thrown myself into it with gusto, telling myself that this time it will be different.  This time, I will be…

Read More

Breastfeeding: I Did It My Way

And now, the end is here. And so we reach the final curtain. Blah blah blah whatever the lyrics are (sorry Frank, but eighties Madonna is more my karaoke of choice). I did it my way. A year ago, I wrote a piece about breastfeeding a three year old, and various media outlets picked it…

Read More

It’s Not Me, It’s You

Some time ago I read a post by a fellow single mum blogger, about the fact that when someone utters the dreaded line “It’s not you, it’s me,” it inevitably feels as though the reverse is true.  After all, you’re the one who has the great big stamp of rejection branded across your forehead. Now,…

Read More

The Wiggly Line of Progress

In the main SEN (special educational needs) classroom in my school, there is a poster which I have upon occasion found myself gazing at and thinking that I would do well to remember its message.  I call it the Wiggly Line of Progress, and it is supposed to show that progress is rarely linear and…

Read More