Many of my friends have become vegetarian or vegan recently, often for environmental reasons. “We watched the new BBC documentary on how bad meat is for the environment” is a phrase I’ve heard many times. Personally, I am not convinced
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In the World After Corona - that glimmering, nebulous term, like a utopia - having been forced to converse via webcam rather than in bars and restaurants, I predict that the allure of the web will not be as strong. Sight will no longer be filtered through pixels. To see for oneself a mountain, to climb and taste sweat and smell soil and rain and earth and feel alive will be a stronger drug.
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In 2020 we have our close friends and family in our pockets 24/7, always available to chat to on Whatsapp or check in with on Facebook or Instagram, but living on a street where you know your neighbours by name and family are close enough to swing by unannounced for a cuppa is not the common state any more.
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Since turning 40, which seems *old enough* I’ve found myself at a lot of parties. I’m sometimes there to photograph which gives me purpose and reason. But sometimes I just go for the craic. A dance, a chat, a catch up, a nose, a chance to observe the youthful avante garde in all their colourful and loud glory.
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Hoping with hope, with or without squinched up eyes, doubles up the optimism power I think; it’s a prayer, without a church, but with a congregation. I hope with hope for a better world. It’s a massive and unwieldy hope, and a daunting one.
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Sometimes life does feel like you’re Samwise Gamgee struggling up Mount Doom with Frodo bitching in your ear and Gollum trying to murder you. Mondays can be that grim.
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I don’t know about you, but I tend to ignore the news once it starts to panic about flooding/cold weather/train strikes (or insert other disaster here). And generally nothing happens when I do. But today, I went out to the supermarket, and found it nearly empty.
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It’s incredible to see the deconstruction of the stigma around mental health; but it’s important to remember it is a double edged sword and a topic that still seems to focus on anxiety and depression, leaving other illnesses still very much in the dark.
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In 2013, we met an awesome woman, C, who was already helping another couple to become parents. And when she had helped them by carrying their daughter, she offered to help us. We had become good friends, and bonded over our love of food, particularly curries.
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I spent 11 months in Australia and a month travelling home (via various countries). During that time I heard the term ‘opportunity of a lifetime’ frequently. I heard it from other backpackers, from people I met, from people at home. I never liked the phrase.
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Nastiness is embedded into the world in one form or another and we’ve all been a part of it. Whether that be giving, receiving, contributing or even just watching it happen. Shamefully, I remember when I was young, finding it extremely hard to give people compliments. I remember actually feeling and thinking ‘I don’t want to compliment that person’.
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This year I’m going to Glastonbury. I am part of the chosen few that secured a ticket. I should be overjoyed, which I am, but for some reason I keep thinking of the fact that I’ll be 23 when Taylor Swift tells me how great it was to be ’22’.
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‘When mentioned Bermuda is always attributed to the mysterious part of the sea that’s responsible for ship and air plane disappearances.’ But there’s so much more to Bermuda than that… and what's so interesting is how the location has shaped the residential buildings. An incredibly well informed and sophisticated piece by Carrie Cross.
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“OK, so I have a really scary question to ask you”. Holding my breath, my dignity and my stomach muscles firmly in place, I looked at the man I’d been friends with for the last 20 years.
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A brown skirt suit, Jesus, what was I thinking? I thought borrowing something smartish from my big sister would help, and maybe it did, but it absolutely wasn’t me! I felt like a total fraud. I sat on the coach at Maidenhead bus station thinking it was the start of the rest of my life! That 11 quid fare was my ticket to freedom! It was the summer of 1989.
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Candle lit table in an Italian restaurant. The soft glow of the flame creates dappled shadows around our wine glasses - mine, half empty, his, near gone. His hand slowly glides across the table cloth, gently falling on top of my palm. He looks up at me, burning curiosity in his cool eyes, “so”, he says, “tell me about your family?”
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When my son was four we spread ourselves out on the floor that Valentine’s Day and made the most ridiculous mess with glitter, glue, feathers and red paint, stuck to a massive stack of cards… I asked him “Who is your first card for?”. “It’s for me Mummy, I love myself first”. The wisdom of babes, indeed.
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No, I do not want to sleep with my male best friend. No, I do not want to date them either. No, I do not think we are destined to be together… This is not a rom com.
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We were lucky, we had a healthy baby. That baby is 6”3 and 21 years old now and he’s done a little experimenting of his own. He has (I suppose) been as honest with me as I was (ahem, highlights only) with my Mum. His stint was very short lived but he asked me questions, for advice, and I readily gave it.
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I don’t need to defend classical music: with streaming services and radio, accessibility to classical music is at its height. Cheap tickets also mean that live music is not reserved for the elite. However, as demonstrated by a rather strange recent article in The Guardian which claimed that classical music is elitist, the genre still falls on deaf ears.
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