LEARNING THE ART OF LIVING WELL
Yesterday was horrendous. While, strictly speaking, it was the first day back at (home) school after the Easter holidays, I suppose parents across the country made a decision about how stressful they were going to make it for themselves. I – perhaps predictably – went full-force. I could have eased my son back in, but […]
Read More
This is a preview of the foreword of Lost for Words, a new book created by the Life Matters task force – a coalition calling for better support for bereaved families – to mark Children’s Grief Awareness Week 2019. The book is made up of advice and insights by children across the UK, bereaved from […]
Read More
My late wife, Desreen, was very funny. She had a completely different take on the world to anyone else I’ve ever met. For instance, after she’d given birth to our son she never really spoke negatively about wanting to lose weight or build back the stomach muscles that were cut open during her emergency caesarean. […]
Read More
Idiosyncrasies are what make individuals so interesting, but they can also make them really annoying if they are totally at odds with your own learned and acquired behaviours. I find few things more uncomfortable than over-enthusiasm and gushy praise for ordinary things – like, say, waxing lyrical about something that appears, tastes, sounds or feels […]
Read More
Travelling with someone you love is just like living with them, only more intense. I remember being in Laos with my late wife once and realising she hadn’t said a word to me for two days. She would go through occasional periods of silence back at home in London – usually when she had done […]
Read More
Much to my surprise, I found this next entry in the notes on my iPhone yesterday afternoon. It was entirely written by my son on the first day of our six-week trip round Italy last summer, when he was just seven years old. I’ve tweaked the grammar slightly, but otherwise this ‘part two’ is in […]
Read More
‘I don’t like my school anymore,’ my six-year-old son told me after his first day in year two last week. ‘I haven’t got any friends.’ This seemed peculiar given that he is still attending the same school as the year before, with the same pupils and even, for the time being, the same teacher. I […]
Read More