Posted in Events, Personal life

Dream On

My first blog post of 2023 is the column I wrote for the January issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News – a very important institution in the life of a little Cotswold village like mine!

I’m the kind of optimist who not only sees the glass as half-full, but is jolly grateful to have a glass, and assumes it must be made of the finest crystal.

That’s not to say I’m oblivious to darker times. But when life seems grim, I unleash a handy collection of mantras that make me feel better.

  • “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness”, I tell myself. (Clichés are clichés for a reason, you know.)
  • “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” (Thank you for that one, Percy Bysshe Shelley – especially handy as winter is my least favourite season.)
  • If I’m in a musical frame of mind, I simply channel D:Ream and play “Things can only get better” on a loop in my head.

But as this new year dawns, I’m feeling wary. For the last few years, I’ve started every January thinking, “This has got to be a better year than the last one”. Then along comes something worse.

What a run of disasters we have had lately: Trump, Brexit, Covid, more Covid, the war in Ukraine, and all the economic and political fall-out those crises induced. Not to mention ever-stranger weather, indicative of frightening climate changes.

With apologies to Samuel Johnson, who described second marriage as “the triumph of hope over experience,” experience is threatening to triumph over hope.

Yet my inner optimist will out, and as I list those disasters, over which I had no control, bar the right to vote and to get vaccinated, I realise it’s still within my power to make 2023 a better year in small ways.

So 2023 will be the year that I will vow never to run out of teabags, or milk for my morning tea…

photo of box of 480 tea bags
Bonus point: if you buy M&S Luxury Gold teabags in bulk, they work out cheaper than Everyday teabags!

or the cats’ favourite treats, Dreamies:

box of 350 Dreamies
Downside: the Mega Tub might make my three cats a bit tubby too

And if I’m setting the bar that low, doesn’t that mean things can only get better? Let’s live in hope.

Wishing you a new year full of whatever makes you happy.


In my next post, I’ll be reviewing my writing achievements in 2022 and sharing my writing plans for 2023. 

PS My new year’s resolution is to publish a new blog post every Wednesday! Let’s see how that goes… 

Posted in Family, Writing

Pray Fill Your Glasses for 2016

In my December column for the Tetbury Advertiser, I tried to put the tumultuous events of 2016 into perspective

Cover of Tetbury Advertiser December 2016As 2016 draws to a close, few will mourn its passing. From the start, it seemed a blighted year, robbing us of many national treasures and bringing us Brexit and President-Elect Trump.

Scrolling back through the year to seek more positive memories, I discover the event that filled me with most hope was the centenary of the Somme.

Ironically, one of the bloodiest battles in human history became a source of hope when at 7:30 AM on July 1st, vast numbers of people gathered nationwide to commemorate those who gave their todays for our tomorrows, and again on Remembrance Day last month. It was heartening to see people from throughout society turn out for these events, including many young people and children. It is especially heartening that so many of the youngest generation want to honour them though very few have met anyone born during that era and perhaps feel no immediate personal connection.

Celebrating Cousin Nina

Nina and Laura together
My grandma’s late cousin Nina, who celebrated her 100th birthday in May, with my daughter Laura last year

My daughter is lucky to be an exception. She has been able to get to know my grandma’s cousin Nina, born before the Battle of the Somme began. We helped her celebrate her hundredth birthday this year. Each time we visit her, we feel we are touching history and witnessing at first hand the human instinct to survive in the face of adversity. Nina has been widowed four times, but is currently single, as common parlance has it. (Sadly, Nina passed away just after I wrote this column –  but rather that blame 2016, I view her survival to 100 more of a miracle than a curse.)

Reasons to be Cheerful

Such special occasions lift my spirits beyond the quagmire of the daily news headlines.

Every day brings reasons to be hopeful, if only we remember to look for them.

Yes, I know that’s easy for an optimist to say. I realise not everyone is such a Pollyanna like me. During an interviewed the other day on BCfm Radio, I told the presenter, historian and historical novelist Lucienne Boyce, that I’m a glass-half-full person. I was amused by her response “I’m the kind of pessimist that can’t even see the glass”. Perhaps for 2017 we should each resolve to find out glass and fill it.

A Force for Good

We may look back on 2016 as an annus horribilis, but as future generations will discover, it will also be a year when great men and women were born who will in time be a force for good. If you’ve become a parent or grandparent this year, you’re probably agreeing already.

To encourage sceptics, here’s a reminder of two great men born in 1916:

  • Francis Crick, Nobel laureate, co-discoverer of DNA’s molecular structure, arguably the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century
  • mould-breaking author Roald Dahl, who has brought laughter and comfort to readers young and old for generations

If such greatness can come forth phoenix-like from such desperate times, maybe everything will come right for us too.

I wish you peace, joy and love this Christmas, and may your glass remain full in the New Year.

Posted in Personal life

One Man’s Weeds

My column for the June issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News

Pegging the washing out on the line in the garden, I realise I’m knee-deep in dandelion clocks. The recent rains have brought the weeds on apace, as well as the glorious spring blossom.

photo of a single dandelion clock
It’s dandelion time…

But on a sunny day like this, I’m happy to forgive the weeds. After all, weeds are only plants that are growing in the wrong place. Continue reading “One Man’s Weeds”