Feathering My New Empty Nest

It feels that way right now. Thirty-one years ago we bought our slice of heaven. A 17th-century thatched Northamptonshire cottage at the foot of a hill, on the edge of an ancient forest. We were newly married and smitten with our life in the country; a long-held dream of mine since I was a child. Sundays were taken up with long walks in the forest followed by a pint in the next-door pub. We furnished it simply but beautifully, adding a few antiques and the odd stuffed owl when funds permitted. Then along came children and they learned how to appreciate the English countryside with their own version of the road safety code whilst looking right and left "No moo cows no horsies". Seasons came and went, Easter egg hunts in the garden, harvest suppers in the village hall, the annual Summer Village show where the boys would show off their vegetable animals, and egg-cup flower arrangements. Flowers and foliage for the church would be gathered from the hedgerows and of course our Chr...

Who wasn't watching Big Jet TV as Storm Eunice blew in ? Mark your calendars for the next predicted wild winter weather fronts ... Fatima, Gertrude, Horace etc. Driving eldest son into work at Heathrow during the pandemic, when public transport was a germ-laden hotspot of infection, we'd pass Jerry ( as I'd later come to learn his name) strapped to the top of his van whilst pointing his camera at incoming jets. He was easy prey - a plane-spotting, bobble hat-wearing aviation enthusiast. There are hundreds of them lining the perimeter roads of the airport and you'd wonder what the attraction was. Seen one plane land, seen them all. The train-spotting analogies were everywhere. This flask carrying brigade jotting serial numbers in their reporter's notebooks became an easy target. The (mis-attributed to Andy Warhol) quote of everyone having their 15 minutes of fame was never more applicable than to yesterday's edition of Jerry Dyer's Big Jet TV. Even the name h...

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...