If there’s one thing that worries me right now, it’s the pressure I hear my friends putting themselves under about homeschooling. And it’s mostly women. That’s not to say my male friends aren’t worried but it’s exclusively my girlfriends who are posting online about how they’re trying to build lesson plans / find new ways…
Category archives: Family
Five realistic ways to entertain your children, for free!
Entertaining children is no walk in the park – especially if you’ve already had your exercise for the day and can’t walk in the park. There’s also the added pressure of unhelpful suggestions that somehow we should all be getting our kids to unleash their inner Galileo or Hawkins when all we want is Five.…
Countdown to Christmas
What a week to be a working parent. The children are hanging on by their fingertips to get to Friday when 1.30pm brings the end of school and the official start of Christmas. They are puffy-eyed, over tired and bordering on hysteria in that unique ‘it’s nearly Christmas’ way. At school, the curriculum has gone…
A Christmas carol
You know when you think you’re just going to hear a few Christmas carols being sung by your child’s class and it turns out to be a full blown church service? That’s precisely what happened to me recently. Perhaps the fact it was held in an abbey should have alerted me, but I couldn’t help…
What every woman wants for Christmas
Darling, don’t buy me a Dyson When you’re out Christmas shopping this year There’s something else I’ve got my eyes on But it seems that my hints are not clear Sweetie, do not buy me saucepans I don’t care how special they are And I would think twice, if you think it is nice To…
What Camping and Business Travel Have in Common
Not so long ago I wouldn’t have set foot inside a tent. The aversion to canvas was in part formed by an early experience with the Brownies where we camped on a rugby pitch in Abergavenny; one of our party had (to put it delicately) a “very upset tummy”, the rest of us were just “very…
Doggy Style
What do you do when your life has got a bit simpler? You know, when the kids are able to take care of most things themselves and you feel like you have established some semblance of a routine. You get a dog, that’s what you do. Well…you try to get a dog. We tried to…
Harry’s Way
I wasn’t sure if I should go at first. My grief wasn’t as acute as everyone else’s. No tears waiting to be shed, no memories to reminisce over, no noted absence were I not to show up. But this was family, so I decided to attend. Thought it would be the ‘right’ thing to do.…