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

Return of the Troll

Some months ago-no, I tell a lie, it was years, one  whole year ago to be precise-I acquired a troll. It was just after I’d announced publicly that I was still breastfeeding my three year old and the haters burst forth to offer their poorly educated and unwanted opinions.  Surely that child is in school!…

Read More

Very Brief Existential Crisis (now recovered having written it down-DO NOT FEAR FOR MY SANITY!)

The other day I started feeling sorry for myself about my love life (e.g. lack thereof). This is a terrible state of affairs, because it has the ability to depress me like nothing else; well, nothing else apart from those times when I look out of the window, usually at work, and sigh sadly to…

Read More

Feeling a bit starved of affection. Might Get Cat.

It is a fact well established that a woman not in possession of a husband must be in want of a baby.  Or at the very least a cat, so I was of course not surprised to see (on Twitter.  Not in the course of my own literary wanderings.  I prefer something a little more…

Read More

The One With The Snow Day

It is a fact well established that one spends all winter praying for a snow day and then when one finally arrives, the reality never quite lives up to its powdery promise. “Let’s go to a coffee shop!” I said.  “We’ll go to a coffee shop, in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY!  And do our…

Read More

The Half Term Pressure

I am currently sitting on the sofa.  It is Sunday, and there is no work tomorrow.  Instead there is a week stretching ahead of me in which I must make up for all the time I didn’t have in term time by making sure I’m up to date with work, fitting in all the life…

Read More

Grid Girls: A Philosophical Analysis

As you may know my day job involves, amongst other things, discussing philosophy with teenagers.  One of my Year 13 students commented recently that it must be a wonderful job, sitting around having conversations all day about the great mysteries of the universe, and for the most part, it is.  We’ll ignore the marking for…

Read More

Back Where I Belong

My brother once accused me of being like a salmon. I took it as a compliment, as one does.  Back in the days before I was vegetarian (seventeen years ago, though it gives me palpitations at the thought of my ever-increasing antiquity) I used to enjoy the occasional smoked salmon, and with their leaping about…

Read More