Until we all went into lockdown – the ‘before’ period that feels like another time altogether – I used to love to eat out. Although I am a moderately good cook (and my husband a willing sous-chef), there is so much to be said for it…

Are you a grandmother? Does that give you absolute joy or considerable worry? Or perhaps both? Read More

It is often suggested that babies should be born with a manual, because it is so hard for new parents to work out how best to look after them. We, mothers, know that we managed somehow or other. But now it begins again, as we are faced with being a grandmother. Read More

It is said that once a mother, you are always a mother. However old your son or daughter may be, they are always your children. This may be right, but it is a blessing and a curse. Most of us cannot escape it. This realisation came home to me…

Now we are 60 (as A.A. Milne of Christopher Robin fame might have said), we are of an age to think about grandmothers. Perhaps you are a grandmother or hoping to be one. Perhaps your friends are grandmothers…

We all use words every day. Whether to express an ordinary sentiment, a technical problem, or something much deeper and reflective, we do our best to get the words right…

I would guess that most people who know me see me as a cheerful older woman, with a good life and little to complain about. All this is true. Yet, at the same time, I can feel myself turning into a Grumpy Old Woman. Read More

Time is a very strange phenomenon. For most of our lives, we don’t have enough. We struggle with children and jobs and housework and think “If only I had more time, I would get on with…”

In these new and – as everyone says – ‘unprecedented’ times, we are all stuck indoors, with a lot of time on our hands. I don’t know about you, but I am watching a lot more television than usual…

How often do you have one of ‘those days’ when things just seem to go very wrong? I am not talking about days of virus epidemics or when you find out that you…