Plus ça change… Or New Year, same old rubbish

Plus ça change… Or New Year, same old rubbish

Meet my daughter’s bedroom. Apparently most teenage girls are as messy as this. Except the tidy ones, and I understand that they do exist. Now, I’m untidy by nature, and I really don’t expect to live in a museum. I know it takes effort and time to...

Second child around

Our first child is always the prototype, no? The child who turns our own carefree child-like relationship upside down forever with their demands on arrival. The longed-for, hoped for expression of our excitement at a new stage in our life. The joy, delight, shock of...

What would your mum say?

So many words have been used to describe the lootfest of the past few days. I can’t add to them here except to express my own outrage. As well as the horrific pictures of the burning Reeves store in nearby Croydon, we have seen examples of all sorts of thuggish...

One more step: the end of an era

Darling Daughter now has one week of Primary school left. From September, she will join her brother in the shark-infested waters of a large, highly competitive academic powerhouse, where they expect pupils to organise themselves and build independent lives. For most...