Poetry has become just my favourite. It’s my favourite to read, and my favourite to write, too. Here’s one I wrote about my children: Tattoo If I were to get a tattoo It would have your names As if I could prove By etching them into my skin That there’s nothing I wouldn’t do For…
Collecting Colour
Sometimes, we need a good dose of colour, and this Spring, I’ve been collecting it. It feels like no coincidence that at this time of year, after months of cold, grey weather, nature produces all these little bursts of brightness. We’re not through the cold and dark yet, not really, but early Spring offers us…
Books, books, books
I’m going to be controversial: I have a hard time enjoying World Book Day. I know, I know, it’s great to encourage a love of books in children. And it’s so much fun. My main issue with it is that my children struggle with sensory issues and don’t like changes to routine, so the pressure…
Small Things (or, More Observations Made in my Car)
“We were made for nothing more than this, finding magic in all the smallest things…” That’s from Ed Sheeran’s song, Celestial, which seems to play constantly on the radio in my car. I like how he juxtaposes huge, heavenly images like stars and sky and clouds with this one little line about the smallest things….
Year in Books
2022 has furnished me with a lot of lovely reading time. I find that often, my book choices connect with the seasons, so this year I thought I’d use that, as I sum up the books I most enjoyed this year. Let me know what you have read, and how the seasons affect your reading!…
Driving Through Sunset
“Against the gradually darkening sky, the branches of the tree traced a pattern of twigs and leaves – a pattern of such intricacy and delicacy that those standing below might look up and wonder why the world can be so beautiful and yet break the heart.” From Alexander McCall Smith’s The Saturday Big Tent Wedding…
Out of Sorts
When I was younger, I was bold and free about my faith. I was one of those chirpy Christians that would talk about it to strangers on trains. But as I got older, I became a little more reticent, for a number of reasons. There are, if I’m honest, aspects of Christianity and the Church…
Driving through Sunrise
Every Friday, I drive through sunrise. I get in my car in softening darkness, the sharpness of night-time lingering in the air outside. The hedges and lanes are blanketed in a lightening grey. As I drive, glimmers of pink begin to streak the sky and there are glimpses of the sun’s gold behind hills and…
Favourites
I was rambling on to Andrew last night about what a “good run” of books I have had recently and I think he thought I was slightly loopy. I was trying to explain the difference between the love I have for all books, generally (there are very few I don’t enjoy), and the sheer delight…
Fathers’ Day
Small things make a big difference, right? It’s a recurring theme on this blog and, this Fathers’ Day, it’s the small things I’ve been thinking about. It started when I was trying to find the words to put in my dad’s card (always a tricky one for us Brits – we want not too gushy,…
a few words for when you feel lost
So many people I know, especially those in their twenties and thirties, speak of feeling lost sometimes. Partly it’s that we had a plan or expectation of what life would be by now and it hasn’t worked out that way. Or it has, but it’s not what we thought it would be. Partly, it’s that…
Things I believe in
I’ve been blogging less lately, and I wonder whether it is partly because many of the things on my mind and heart right now are so particularly hard to articulate. Combine that with my mental and physical energy levels being pretty depleted and I wind up with a few unfinished drafts and a lot of…
Life Lived 