I'm not going to blog incessantly about my health. Partly because that would be much too depressing, but also because I want to make the most of my time and what it means, and not get too stuck in the meta and mechanical day to day. At the
Context for this post is here and here. This is the second post in my mini series about chemo! The most emphatic advice I received from a very kind acquaintance who has recently gone through this process, was to keep a positive mindset. She had seen people in her chemotherapy
For background, here was the post where I talked more broadly about my breast cancer diagnosis. And there’s a follow up to this one here. A few people have asked me what the chemo is like, and this question has been much harder to answer than I thought. It&
On 10th December 2024 everything stopped - I was diagnosed with breast cancer aged 44. Here we are, and at the time of writing, I'm 2/3 of the way through chemo (to shrink the cancer before surgery) and getting appointments in place for the next phase. I&
On 8th November 2024 I went on another little nature jaunt to reconnect with my sense of physical place after leaving my fully remote job. This time, I set off on foot from my house around a meander in the river Tees. I even have some fancy tracking via AllTrails.
After almost five years working for American software company Automattic out of my bedroom office, I took a voluntary redundancy offer at the start of October 2024. It was a messy end to a rollercoaster time, but the decision was easy. The company was embarking upon a lengthy legal conflict,
I have written an acapella arrangement for three voices (SAT, or really AAT/B), a nostalgic song about Scotland based around the melody from the first movement of Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony. I persuaded my 18 year old son (tenor/baritone) and 14 year old daughter (alto) to sing
The last post I wrote here was called 'hiatus'... and that was a long time ago. I think the twenty months without the promised return to blogging can themselves testify to just how intense this period has been. I wrote that blog while in France waiting for the
We had a lockdown wedding in December 2020, at Judges Hotel, Kirklevington. Due to covid restrictions we were only allowed 15 guests and no reception, so we improvised a toast in a lay-by near the hotel. Below are some collected posts taken from our original wedding website. Taksameteret går Our
Here’s my attempt to provide a singable English translation of the song “Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerai” from Francis Cabrel’s 1994 album, “Samedi soir sur la terre”. Post originally published in 2020. “Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerais” is
So the changes hoped for in my first post on this new blog came to pass... I'm starting a new job on 17th August as a Happiness Engineer (technical support) at Automattic, the parent company of digital tools including WordPress.com and WooCommerce. I'm hoping that
Things are changing in 2020. At this very moment, I'm trying to change my work and career, and the results of that are a few weeks away yet. But whatever happens, I'm on a new path from here. I stopped writing and blogging publicly online a
Thoughts
Mike was a colleague I used to know a little when I worked at the library service in North Yorkshire, and I wrote this after his very untimely death. If people truly can outlive their physical lives through their writing then thank goodness for Mike's writing. It'
Thoughts
First question. Why would a person desire to kill a beautiful, majestic creature like this. Why would they spend £32,000 in order to be able to kill it. Why would skinning it and taking its head be important. How can we even begin to understand such behaviour from our
Thoughts
Some of the most annoyingly cliched advice that people prone to depressive thinking receive is to "think positively"; "just be positive"; "look on the bright side". As if optimism could be artifically made; as if you could somehow fake or whitewash your experiences and
Francis Cabrel
I wanted to share a song that I've been preoccupied by a little. It's a song by the French singer-songwriter Francis Cabrel and, when put prosaically, couldn't be more French. An adult looks back at a formative sexual experience of his adolescence, when he
My poems
The poem, distanced, courses through the blood My struggling language clamouring for air. These empty windows mock the stammering Of hitching speech, and words broken and bare. I'm wincing at the glowing laptop screen The wasted words that crowding weight my brow Flood, blackly voiding sense. The threatened
Thoughts
Read more about the challenge and about my reasons for taking it on. Below is my food diary that I updated all week - comments and thoughts are at the end. Day 1 - exactly £1 As much as anything keeping a diary will help me police myself and check
Thoughts
Click to read my diary and conclusions after Live Below The Line. I'm regularly troubled by my own privilege compared to people living on dramatically less. Although I am a single parent with a low income, because I live in the UK and have additional support from the
Thoughts
The #nomakeupselfie trend is in the news - here's coverage by the Independent and here's The Guardian, for a little background. I donated £10 to Breast Cancer Care yesterday, and since it's been troubling me, I decided to try to examine my own thought
Reviews
From the outset, the PuppetCraft cast encouraged a non-frontal and participatory style of theatre, asking children to sit on the floor close to the scenery. Special mention has to go straight away to the sound and music. Sounds were created live using sampling and mixing of the strange and mysterious
Reviews
Review originally published on DigYorkshire in October 2013. As seen at Harrogate Theatre as part of All Points North 2013. Sarah Wallis’ The Rain King presents depths of meaning; intensity of character; complicit and knowing humour keeping us on side; profound reserves of talent both in writing and acting; a
Reviews
Titus Andronicus was an absolute joy for anyone who likes their Shakespeare shaken up, electro-shocked à la Frankenstein – something rather beautiful and terrible jolted into vivid life, created painstakingly carefully out of pieces that centuries of critics and theatre directors have left for dead. Smooth Faced Gentlemen demonstrated superlative understanding
Reviews
Neil Simone’s art is both extremely complex, and extremely accessible. Not only are his natural landscapes light, aesthetically pleasing and clear, but each one is imbued with meaning. Gently curved trees enclose a secret garden; painted sand pours from a painted canvas onto a painted gallery floor; a wintry