Feathering My New Empty Nest

 I thought I'd check out the employment market. It looked surprisingly buoyant all things considered. It's been a while since I last worked for someone else and if lockdown has taught me anything, it's that I miss the office banter and the teamwork that I used to enjoy in a traditional workplace. This may of course just be those rose-tinted specs interfering. Being freelance ( or working from home ) casts you adrift on a sea of loneliness and it's been interesting to hear people who've been forced to work at home admit this. For me, a form of professional self-isolation has been the norm for over a decade. The trouble is, I don't think I understand what jobs are anymore. Anything ending in 'er' is OK - manag er , car er , teach er , broadcast er etc but it looks like a lot has happened to job descriptions since I last looked. What started as a bit of curious, half-hearted online investigation gave me a full-on hour of hilarity. I'm wondering if you ...

An alien concept to me ... until recently. I’ve been flirting with it for several years,  unable to embrace it fully. It’s everything I’m not . I don’t do things by halves . I’m more of a maximalist tending to do things in spades and yet the idea has grown on me gradually. The more I read about it, the more I’ve been daring myself to go the whole hog. Nothing like a global pandemic to force you into sorting out your priorities though . And so I find myself in the middle of yet another major clear out , telling myself that I don’t ever want to have to do this again . This really is the very last time. Last week I read The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning in one sitting. Marie Kondo hadn’t persuaded me but this book made more sense. It’s not something I want to leave to the boys after I’ve gone. That’s what pandemics do to you - sharpen your focus on your impending death . Sounds morbid I realise but it’s true. It has been utterly overwhelming and yet cathartic. I am left wit...

At the start of every new year, I am encouraged to choose one little word that I wish to define my forthcoming year. In the past, I've opted for positive affirmations designed to encourage and inspire such as 'simplify' and 'aspire'. Had I know what this year was to hold I may have settled for 'hibernate' or 'delete' but hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Retrospectively therefore, I am chosing , for the fisrt half of 2020 'stagnate' the dictionary definition of which reads 'to cease developing; to become inactive or dull'. Yes, that sums up my year so far. Breaking with tradition, for what is tradition other than a stagnation of ideas coupled with a failure to move forward, I am choosing a new word for the second half of this annus horribilis and have chosen the word 'renew' . Enough of this energy-sapping introspection and lethargy. I am fed up to the gunwhales of lost opportunities, apathy and befuddled thinking. Ti...

I am 61. I've not been looking forward to it . I'm not entirely sure why. Mostly, I suppose, because neither of my boys are here at home and I'll be spending the day alone. Although I am not alone. I have the delightful company of jack and Jenny who will follow me around the house, beg for treats, complain if their food is late and sit on my legs in bed. David has bought me Louis Theroux's autobiography which I have devoured and am nearly half way through and it's not even lunchtime. I ate chocolate and toast for breakfast and have had 2 cups of coffee already. Both Theo and Max phoned this morning. They're good boys although Max , it turned out is in London visiting his girlfriend but I must accept that girlfriends have more allure than mothers, and I do. I'll be turning up the Foo Fighters to 11 and blasting their songs at the top of my lungs with nobody to complain. I am in my Pjs. Enough said. It is a good day .. so far.

The root of most non-essential spending is unhappiness apparently . I must have led a very miserable life in that case. Our home is full of Stuff. I have spent most of this summer getting rid of a lot of it but I realised I was just becoming more adept at shoe-horning it all into the available remaining square inches of space. I have 3 full boxes ( extra large ) of storage containers . Ironic ? It has made me utterly miserable dealing with it all to the point of despair. I have to keep reminding myself of the motivation behind this life-changing exercise. To free up time and space and to live a simpler life. Every single item has required some sort of a decision - keep , re-home, chuck, donate, gift . It has been exhausting . A real 1st world 21st century problem I realise. With half the world starving and millions homeless, here I am wondering whether I really need 8 calculators . OK , so I'm a maths teacher but I can only use one at a time. In all of this mess I have only giv...

Got weighed - put on 1/2 lb Won woman of the year at Slimming World Ate at The Beech House with the boys Continued to clear out the crap Went to Ikea Called in on Michelle for a catch up Drank a Diet Coke Played Twist it with Max Spent too long on the internet Marked up the floor for my new teaching room Ate a SW Fruit and Nut bar Made a list of Ikea items I wanted to buy Charged my phone Weighed myself a lot Drove home when I shouldn't have Spoke a bit of French Ate a pizza Tried Max's Fade Away cocktail - delicious Bought Korean BBZ seaweed thins Took Ellen and Jasmine to the airport

Nothing like a clearcut to realise that you've acquired some bad shopping habits along the way. The legacy of the lean years was to buy cheap stuff that seemed like a bargain. The 'cost' of this has robbed me of hours of my life and acres of my decision making capacity. Every cheap pencil, pack of paperclips, pencil case and notebook ( to mention just 4 of an enormous collection of 'things' ) required a keep, chuck or use decision which exhausted me and I'm only probably 10% of the way through the pile of crap that amounts to my life. I must own over 100 files, 20 pencil cases , a dozen calculators and god only know how many textbooks. It's been tough parting with somehow that might come in handy one day but with a declining number of days , it just isn't worth the bother. The real value in this objects will be the giving away of them in the almost certain knowledge that in a few weeks time I will have a need for at least a few of them. New Rules: ...