Comedian Ben Miller asks: 'Is there life beyond earth?' |
Wednesday 28 September 2016
Window on the world
It's here, it's started! My brain is buzzing, my heart is full. Can you tell I'm excited? The Henley Literary Festival kicked off this week with a host of writers, performers and literary stalwarts. The festival and I go way back. Ten years ago, when it first opened its doors, it took my hand and said, Stop pining for London - look what Henley has to offer! We've been friends ever since.
For one week in the year, I cram my head with knowledge. It's like I'm making up for lost time - and perhaps I am. My biggest regret from my university years was not attending enough lectures. At the time, bed seemed a more inviting prospect first thing in the morning. In my callow youth I took 'learning' for granted. Now, entrenched in the humdrum world of work and parenthood, I can't get enough of it.
Monday 19 September 2016
Drama in the night
Hermaphrodite Mum
Three kids and a single mum
"Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!" was King Lear's famed reaction to the storm. "Where the hell are my children?" was mine last week as I lay in bed listening to rolls of thunder shake our house to its very foundations.
Normally, a rollicking, good thunderstorm never fails to bring all three children running into my bedroom like rats deserting a sinking ship, but last week as the storm bellowed outside my open window, there was no sign of them. My first thought was: Oh well, I'll just go back to sleep! But then I started to panic. What if Walking Toddler was a gibbering wreck, too frightened even to call out my name? What if one of them has been struck by lightening unbeknownst to me?
Three kids and a single mum
"Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!" was King Lear's famed reaction to the storm. "Where the hell are my children?" was mine last week as I lay in bed listening to rolls of thunder shake our house to its very foundations.
Where are the kids? © Jaroslav Noska | Dreamstime.com |
Tuesday 13 September 2016
Don't stop believing...
Self-belief is a powerful but fragile gift. One of my personal heroes has always been Amelia Earhart, a pioneering pilot and a woman of incredible courage and vision. This week I was reading about about how she may have ended her days as an injured castaway on a remote Pacific island. New research indicates that she made a series of distress calls from the island after her Lockheed Electra crashed in the summer of 1937 during the final stages of her attempt to fly around the globe.
A celebrity in depression-era America, Earhart earned her stripes after she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932. Five years later, on the cusp of turning 40, she sought one more challenge: to become the first woman to fly around the world. "I have this feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system," she declared rather ominously.
Amelia Earhart: an inspiration to modern women © Yuri Yukhimchuk | Dreamstime.com |
Thursday 8 September 2016
Passing through Barcelona
A visitor to the Skybar, Grand Hotel Central |
Travelling has its own mystique for me. As the child of ex-pats, I have never felt entirely comfortable living in England. I much prefer the thrill of foreign cultures, even if it's only a week in France! Somehow, I feel more alive when I'm in someone else's country.
Wednesday 3 August 2016
Game on
"Come on Mummy, you can do it!" Could I though? Could I really? It turned out I could. Hop, skip and a jump along the towpath, ignoring the stares of the more sedate grown-ups out for a walk. That's all there was to it. Yes, I know, we are not talking about rowing across the Atlantic here, but for some reason I seem to have lost the ability to play with my children. Now the summer holidays are upon us, I am struggling to re-discover my inner child.
A whole year of working freelance, finishing off my novel and squeezing out the odd blog post has left me devoid of play skills (and I mean the physical, get-down-on-the-floor, act-like-an-idiot mode of play). When my kids were little, I wasn't too bad at it. Apart from that first culture-shifting moment at a Monkey Music class in Earlsfield, where I realised that parenthood now required me to sing ridiculous songs and swing my arm like an elephant's trunk, I generally managed to get down to my kids' level in those early years.
Recovering the lost art of entertaining the kids! |
Thursday 28 July 2016
Glass splinters
It feels like there is a new era dawning for women leaders and clearly I am not the only person to be thinking about the importance of female role models. On Tuesday, after Hillary Clinton officially became the Democratic Party's nominee for the next US President, she told the cheering crowd:
"If there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch, let me just say I may become the first woman President. But one of you is next."
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