Thoughts
This was written when I moved my personal blog onto yorkshirewords.com. Attentive followers will have seen that I previously had two websites, a personal blog using my name, and a professional blog talking about my freelancing. I also had two distinct Twitter accounts, one personal and one professional. I
Thoughts
An open letter to James Rhodes, pianist (in reply to his article). James, on the off-chance you do read this (since I'm going to tweet you a link to it!) I don't know you at all, of course, and please forgive my direct way of addressing
Thoughts
The more I talk and think about actually, concretely starting to write creatively, the more it feels that I'm being dragged over a precipice. The more I feel the need to write, the more preoccupied by it I become and the more difficult it becomes not to start.
Thoughts
I'm going to stop being afraid of writing. Neil Gaiman, Rainer Maria Rilke and Gustav Holst are the specific heavyweight inspirations for this burst of courage. But explaining the initial reticence which has silenced me for more than a few months is a complicated one and comes down
Thoughts
Here's the full text of an opinion piece I've drafted for the Friends of Nidderdale AONB newsletter - where it did end up, albeit in edited down form. I thought I might as well archive it here. It was a bit of a spontaneous rant inspired
Thoughts
As an undergraduate in history of art at Cambridge, I remember struggling with the ‘feminist theory’ class. I found it hard to stomach what was being taught, which (it seemed) was concretely the rejection of all art which treated the female body as desirable. ‘Feminist’ art as it was presented
National Trust
I think that keeping myself and the children busy and active, doing lovely things and making lovely memories, is one of the best ways that I've dealt with the difficulties of the past eighteen months and helped myself and the children to settle and move on from the
French
Francis Cabrel is one of my favourite singer-songwriters, coming from the region of France where I lived for ten years. I learnt much of my French from his songs, as he writes with a great deal of intelligence and poetic sensibility and love for language and music - in the
Thoughts
Although it's poor style to start with an 'incidentally'... It was odd when I googled the above phrase to discover (having sung it as part of the Messiah but somehow omitted to properly pay attention) that the sheep are not those who blindly follow, but those
Thoughts
One of my favourite Paul Simon songs is "Some folks' lives" and I was reminded of it today meeting some other Harrogate Gingerbread mums and sharing stories. Here are the lyrics; have a listen: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbagtXi4HBs?rel=0] It's
Thoughts
It's been a while - in fact, a month to the day - since I used this blog properly, and I can feel it. My posts on Facebook are getting somewhat erratic (and lengthy, as I feel the urge to dissert on various topics); emails and messages to
Choir
Sadly I've decided to stop singing with the Clerkes in York, an excellent and fun chamber choir which I have been a member of for six months. While I've enjoyed the time I have spent, and I've tried various things to make it work,