Feathering My New Empty Nest

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...