Notes from a difficult time

18 months ago today, it was 12 July 2021. My father had died a few days ago. It was a difficult time, and not always for the reasons you might imagine. There was a lot going on then, which I didn't want to think or write about then and still don't wish to. The few...

Silly questions for a silly season

Do Christmas trees dream about their tree-filled past? Does a plum pudding think about fortitude? Do icicles worry about melting when the weather warms? Do bees ever try buzzing backwards? Do new shoes lying around separately, miss each other? Do plums consider any other virtues? Does a reindeer feel stressed, hearing Christmas songs? Do violins...

Cockatoos at dawn and other unexpected things

Awake all night, I rise and watch cockatoos wheeling in the dawn sky, before setting to the task I've set myself on a very strange day.

Awake, again

It's 6.08am on Sunday morning. Birds are chirping merrily, a plane is flying overhead, the sky is light, the air is still. I'm awake to observe all this early morning activity, not through choice, but because I woke at 2.15am (or thereabouts) last night and couldn't get back to sleep. Photo by Niels Weiss on...

When I’m not writing

When I'm not writing, I'm probably thinking about writing. When I am not writing, I'm working at my paid job....after all, this writing gig doesn't pay the bills, does it?! When I’m not writing, I’m eating breakfast, showering, cleaning my teeth, and travelling to my job, which on some days now, means, sitting at the...

There’s a gap in between*

Well, hello! And yes, it has been quite a while since I wrote on this blog. "On" it? Or perhaps more accurately, "in" it - as I am, now, filling "IN" the blank white page with little black letters that, once combined, make words! which delightfully seem to manoeuvre themselves into sentences before I know...

Planning v writing v living

My dears, you may have noticed my absence over the past month or so. This is due to the fact that, despite my many letters to complain about this, there are still only 24 hours in a day, and only 7 of those damn things in a week. The trouble is, I decided in the...