Feathering My New Empty Nest

Boots just sent me an email. They were very persuasive. Apparently I should be 'Giving the Gift of Wellness " to my besties this Christmas. Their helpful suggestions included yoga gear, fitness equipment or or a 'Make Your Soul Happy' Tin. Fuck off Boots. Whatever it is that makes my soul happy won't be found in a tin. I can't even go Christmas shopping in John Lewis these days without hearing their newly installed Peleton bike ring out it's cajoling "Good Job Ashley" on every floor. Ashley can go take a hike. I hadn't planned to have my Pre-Christmas meltdown today but it reared it's ugly head a few days early this year. I can usually make it to the 20th before going ballistic over the empty beer cans , piles of trainers and discarded takeaway cartons littering every floor in the house. It's great having the boys back home but every now and then I need to remind them that I don't want to live in a shit tip and they're not slum...

 Very.

Caitlin Moran nailed it when she said "Don't marry a c**t" How do you know if your intended is a potential c**t ? In all likelihood you'll find out too late. The early years of marriage are a doddle, it's when you plan for children that the waters start to muddy. And by 'muddy' think sludge-brown, chemically contaminated river silt. Despite their insistence that the workload will be shared, quite simply, it never will. Trust me on this. No matter how liberated and woke they claim to be , men will always resort to hiding behind that kevlar barrier called Male Pride. Actually it doesn't even deserve this capitals. Who even coined that phrase ? I've seen it described as 'The definition of something like masculine pride would come across as something like the following: an innate sense of aggressive pride in one’s maleness.' However, the synonyms for this could easily fall under machismo, chauvinism, or manliness at the most vague. What I have ...

 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.