No, not a handy guide for the new orange leader of the free world – though Lord knows he could probably use it. One of the most common questions I get about my interiors, other than ‘where is your bed from?’ (It was custom-built in the house before we bought it, I’m afraid. I just
I’ve spent a lot of my 32 years trying to change. I truly believe it’s important to understand your own shortcomings, and of course we’re all trying to grow into better & happier people. However, over the last few years I’ve come to appreciate that some of my self loathing was targeted in entirely the
A dried thistle flower. She hands it to me, sniffling, drying her eyes from some head-bang or dog lick, and tells me in a small voice, ‘it is a hedgehog’. And it is! It has two eyes and a nose, and my heart turns to mush at the prickly little treasure she has brought back from her
Can we talk about small things for a moment? About the impossibly sweet and nostalgic accoutrements of childhood. A little blue cardigan hanging from a big hallway hook. Miniature shoes lined in tidy little rows. Small, pudgy hands clutching smaller, balding Sylvanian rabbits, who in turn hold impossibly tiny jugs and teapots and cakes. Most days I am immune
Nobody talks about how boring parenting can be. It’s this weird Western system we’ve created, where we all raise our children alone; sealed into our little boxes on quiet, orderly streets. Perhaps meeting at a playground or a toddler group sometimes, where we will start a thousand sentences, and never find out how a single
These are the days that we came here for. When the sun warms our bedroom at the top of the house while the dawn chorus works itself up to an orchestral cacophony. And we dig out the sun cream from the dusty recess of the bathroom cabinet, noting the changes to tiny pudgy hands and
{100 stories}: A COLLECTION OF FICTIONAL FRAGMENTS & UNFINISHED RAMBLINGS Sonny doesn’t talk. They tell me not to say that, but then they tell me all sorts of things – he’s waiting to surprise me, just turn off the TV, boys are slower to develop than girls. Give him time – I get
I’ve decided that toddlers are like chocolate. I love chocolate. Who doesn’t?! It’s sweet and delicious and most of the time I could just eat it all up – pleather leggings be damned! Sometimes, though, I’m really hungry for something different – something healthy, perhaps – and the thought of all that sweetness makes me feel a
A little lesson I re-learned this week, with help from my little muffin, & from Peppa Pig. Last month I bought Orla a Peppa Pig Playhouse on a whim. She’d found a Daddy Pig figure in a charity shop the day before & wanted it so desperately, & then I spotted the full set on