It’s my birthday this week, and so I have been delightfully inundated with gifts. (This year has been especially bountiful, since my lovely friends have also sent housewarming gifts, or bought me things which combine both. You guys!) Among these have been a fair amount of champagne, which is always welcome, and the usual magnificent […]
Tag Archives: life
I have been blogging over at Prodigal Geordie about my move back North, so those of you who have been following that will know that it’s been a slightly bumpy transition. On the one hand, it is lovely to be so near to so many old friends, and to have family literally around the corner. […]
So, as some of you will know, I am in the process of moving back to Newcastle right now (see my new blog, Prodigal Geordie, for updates). It’s been an interesting, if not always easy process, and one that has thrown up some emotional issues. Is it an admission of failure – that I can’t […]
I’ve written before on topics like kindness, and asking for help, many of those pieces based on my own experience of coping with losing my mum and being homeless all at the same time. I like to think I have learned from those experiences: that I have seen the best in people and, if I […]
One of the most common questions writers are asked is ‘where do you get your ideas from?’ Usually, the answer is no more enlightening than ‘my head’. But sometimes you do remember the spark, even if the final story bears no resemblance to what inspired it. So it is with Louise’s Tattoos. It’s an old […]
Some words have such a weight you can’t carry them. They are so freighted with import, with the expectations of others or the ages, you shy away from applying them to yourself because you simply can’t live up to them. So, five years ago, when I became, in fairly rapid succession, both homeless and an […]
I feel like I have blogged a lot about mental health this year – in no small part because the world has seemed to be making a concerted effort to make us all anxiety-ridden wrecks. But also because I hope that, in continuing to talk about it, I am helping, even in a tiny way, […]
This year, so far, has probably been the least productive of my life. Hell, even that time I was homeless I managed to write a book, but 2017 has felt like one long anxiety attack, where any impulse to create has been buried under a deluge of apathy and stress. Some of this has been […]
Who doesn’t love hindsight? I’m a big fan of science fiction, and one of my favourite tropes is ‘what if?’. What would have happened if George Bailey had never existed? What would happen if, Sliding Doors style, you made one choice instead of another, you zigged instead of zagged? So, if you had the chance […]
It’s a weird thing to be no one’s priority, and have no one be your priority in return. It’s approaching four years since my mother died – and ended the one defining relationship of my life – and this is a thought I find myself returning to. In a very real sense, I am completely […]
Dark Dates 