The man behind me is talking about fasting. He’s got one of those unignorable voices — and not in a good way. His companion asked him if he wanted something to eat (big mistake, huge) and now he hasn’t drawn breath for ten minutes. And he’s loud, very loud.  Apparently he hasn’t eaten anything for 25 hours and he’s aiming for 36; it’s amazing for his body, it’s cured his aches and niggles, it’s cleansing his liver. I want to turn around and hurl my coffee in his face. I can’t focus as it is and now I’ve got his froggy drone grating my brain. The other man’s barely said a word, he hasn’t h ..read more

My reflection stares at me from the black of the computer screen. I look tired. Drab. Like a pencil sketch that needs to be coloured in. I click the mouse to make it go away. That’s better; a bird’s eye view of some faraway land – or maybe it’s Wales – all mountains and conifers and green rolling hills. “Miaoooow”. A cat has entered the fray – kitten, rather.  She jumps onto my desk, positioning herself perfectly in front of the screen.  I knew she’d follow me up here. She must be wherever I am, a fact that comes as a surprise to me. I thought cats were meant to be independent? I tho ..read more

It’s 4.53 am. I know that because I’m awake. Someone or something is tap dancing on our roof. “What is that?” I whine. “The ravens”, my husband replies “I hate them.” I pull the pillow over my head. “Caaaw… Caaaw Caaaw.”  “Fuck sake!”  I’m up now. I splash cold water on my face, pull on some joggers and go downstairs. I open the shutters and get down on the floor into Cobra; might as well do some stretching now that I’m awake. I’m basically like one of those Hollywood stars or high-powered CEOs – waking up to stretch my spine and drink kombucha while all the other suckers waste their ..read more

“Never give up”. Oh great, I’ll just do that then. We’re watching Louis Theroux interviewing Bear Grylls, and that’s his mantra (Bear’s, not Louis’). There it is: ‘Never Give Up’ emblazoned on the wall of his outdoor office – in a saccharine curly font – to remind him, just in case he forgets one day and dwindles into a feckless bum. It makes me twitch. I find it asinine; too ubiquitous, surely, to actually inspire anyone? It’s t-shirt fodder, words that don’t really mean anything. And there’s something else. It’s smug. A phrase only said by someone safe in the knowledge that they have indeed ..read more

I see her coming towards us. Has she seen me seeing her? Probably. I can’t pretend I haven’t seen her just in case she saw me seeing her. Ok, be normal. Look down, look down, and look up… now. We smile as we walk past each other. “Hi” “Hi” My daughter asks: “Who’s that woman, mummy?” “Just another person that I’m in a hi relationship with.” She knows exactly what I mean. This particular woman was on the sweet stall with me a few weeks ago at the school disco. We spoke for about 4 minutes about crisps and Wham bars and how much to charge for the fake Twixes from Aldi. I think she told me her n ..read more

It’s an easy choice: Korean beef and cheese toastie. And a flat white, the way I like it: half normal milk, half oat milk. The woman behind the counter looks terrified. I might as well have asked for a cup of her menstrual blood. She turns around to her colleagues, a look on her face that says: can we do this? Is it possible? I talk her through it. “You can just fill up the coffee with regular milk and leave space at the top for some oat milk?” She nods, relieved. I go and sit down at the table with my friend. “Did you get your spoon?”, she asks me. “What spoon?” Then I see what she means. In ..read more

I’ve arrived. An all too familiar bubble of excitement floats up in my tummy… First things first: trolley selection. One of the smaller ones, always. The big ones are too unwieldy, too old-fashioned — the type you’d see abandoned in a post-apocalyptic scene, flanked by mounds of rubbish, skies darkening overhead. No. I like the dinky ones. They’re sleek, nifty, and they corner like a dream: the Ferraris of supermarket trolleys, if you will. The traffic lights — a relic from Covid times — are green. And so I enter.  It always feels like that bit in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You ..read more

My coffee’s gone cold. It’s my third cup so I should probably just leave it. I take a sip. Tepid. But it’s still coffee so down it goes. I’m hoping it will cure me, wake up words lying dormant in my brain. There’s something good in there, I’m sure of it. All it needs is a nudge. Something comes to me from long ago, someone else’s words: if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. Shut your face, Bukowski.  I have nothing to write about and too much to write about. I could tell you about my resolution to ..read more

A storm has come. Up here at the top of our house, it feels like I’m on a ship; the Velux windows perfectly slanted to catch every angry drop. It’s loud. But not so loud that I don’t hear the doorbell ring downstairs or my husband’s genial tone as he says: “Oh, my wife’ll kill me if I don’t ask you to take your shoes off — sorry!” He’s right. I would kill him — and the shoe guy too.  I am a self-professed slattern in almost every way. Except one. My floors are spotless. Honestly, you could eat your food off them. Nobody comes in with shoes — not unless they’re trampling over my dead body ..read more

It got me, the swine! I never thought it would. How arrogant of me. Anyway, as it turns out it’s not that sexy. My hips ache like they did in pregnancy, my shoulders feel like they belong to an osteoarthritic octogenarian, and I coughed so hard last night I thought I might be sick. Most onerous of all: my chin hairs are out of control. There’s one in particular that I’ve monikered Audrey II - after the plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Every day I pluck her out and the next day she’s miraculously back again, growing like a well-fed beast. I feel the tip with my fingers — just beneath the skin ..read more