The Bridge
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
2y ago
I’ve been helping my daughter with her revision this week. Well, when I say helping, I mean that I have mostly been letting her get on with it, with occasional reminders to actually do some, rather than spending all her time reading and watching youtube or whatsapping her chums (with whom she is going shopping tomorrow). She has some more exams coming up next week and apparently she wants to do well (well enough not to throw herself under the bed in despair, anyway). Today’s help mostly consisted of a chat over the dinner table about biology. She doesn’t like biology. I am not sure why. She sa ..read more
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The Virtue Signal
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
2y ago
I can’t quite believe that it was so long ago that I started this blog. In 2013, S was still a little boy, with little boy legs and a little boy voice. Now, he is a man grown, if a somewhat short one. In a rush of enthusiasm, and finally getting things off my chest that had long sat there, suffocating me, I wrote post after post, two, three times a week. It was cathartic and freeing. Finally I was managing to DO something – even if it was only tapping on a keyboard that ended up broken. Looking back from tonight, tired after nearly two years in school in the middle of a pandemic (I have gone h ..read more
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A letter to my sister in law, who died last April
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
2y ago
When I saw you I ran out of words. Not like me I know; I don’t usually find myself casting about for things to say. Most of the time it’s a case of asking me (politely) to stop talking, or at least let someone else get a word in. I’m sorry that it happened, it wasn’t what I intended. I meant to remind you of when we first met. Do you remember? Lying in the spare bed in your room, chatting in the dark, an easy conversation and an even easier lie in. Giggling in terror in the back of the car as we hurtled from pub to grocer to butcher to somewhere where they sold spoons (but not the right ones ..read more
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Nurture 20/21
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
3y ago
It seems like a very long time ago since I started writing a looking-backwards-looking-forwards post and I almost wasn’t going to write one this year; however a lot can change in a day and here we are. After a very dry year of blogging, two in a two-week period (it must be the holidays). Last year I didn’t write one. Instead, I wrote something about wellbeing. You can read it here if you like. I can’t remember why this was; it certainly didn’t have anything to do with some sort of foresight. In fact, last year saw me not write very much at all for a whole bunch of reasons including not having ..read more
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Ordinary Tears
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
3y ago
Tonight I find myself with a dilemma. Yes, I have eaten too many chocolates and the fridge is stuffed with tempting goodies but, even considering the state of my lockdown middle, it is not the when-do-i-start-the-diet dilemma that concerns me. To be honest there are a number of concerning dilemmas that I could choose from now that I am living in Tier 4, but it isn’t any of those either. No, the focus of my wondering sits in my eyeline watching telly. He’s wearing a rather nice pair of new trainers his grandfather (my dad) paid for but hasn’t seen (and who hasn’t seen him in the flesh ..read more
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Exposure
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
3y ago
There is a beach at Lyme Regis where you can walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs, if you know where to look and the time is right. I’ve never managed to find them, although I do have a lovely photo of my daughter, aged 6, standing on an enormous ammonite, wrapped up in boots and a yellow coat with a furry hood, protected from the cold, Easter wind, too young to understand the significance of the event, but impressed nevertheless at the strange rock formation standing proud from the hard, wet sand.  When the tide is in, and the cold, grey sea laps against a closer shore, you’d never kn ..read more
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The Mask
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
3y ago
  I have a selection of books from my childhood that sit upon the bottom shelves and that the husband periodically tries to throw away (without getting rid of a multitude of build your own model aeroplane plans, I hasten to add) and which I occasionally come across when looking for something else and take an impromptu trip down memory lane. It happens a lot because I am invariably looking for something I have put in a Safe Place. This last week though, I haven’t so much found a long-lost book, more thought of it and smiled inside. It stands amongst the corner cobwebs with the pink Abba an ..read more
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Going Back to School
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
4y ago
Are you ok? I mean, really ok? Are you ready to go back to school? I mean, let’s be honest. The lockdown has not been easy. Despite a garden, a bedroom of my own (if you don’t count the husband), (relatively) easy access to food and toilet roll (admittedly, it took us a while to get ourselves a supply of flour), a family who actually get on well with each other and kids who are (relatively) low maintenance, it’s been hard. And I’m in a relatively privileged position. I dread to think how it’s been for people who haven’t had the same access to resources we have. And are you anxious? Speaking fo ..read more
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What I Learned at School
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
4y ago
One of the things I’ve been struggling with lately is forming my thoughts into something coherent. I’ve been caught up in a vortex of fear and work; it’s not pleasant, I can tell you. Sometimes, everything feels OK and we all carry on much as we do every summer (it has helped that the weather has been so lovely), with the added advantage of having daddy around. Other times, like last week and this morning, I, and the kids, feel like we’ve hit a wall. We want back the things we enjoyed. A takeaway. A hug. A chat and a giggle that just happens and doesn’t have to be organised and filtered throug ..read more
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Things must change
The Diary of a Not So Ordinary Boy | My world, its ups and downs
by nancy
4y ago
Sometimes I think this must be what it is like to have a comfortable retirement. Every day, I go out into the garden, potter, pull up a weed here or there, think about which plants are in the wrong place and can I move them; I gain pleasure out of discovering which survived a move last spring and are putting out their first, tentative shoots. Most days, I go for a walk with my daughter. Not too far and nothing too strenuous, just around the block or down the lane and across the field (we saw a deer the other day); we soak up the early spring sunshine and delight (well, I do, anyway) in the fai ..read more
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