When Illness Slows You Down
It’s funny how we respond to illness. When I was younger, I fought it. I wasn’t going to let being unwell interrupt anything important. When I went into labour, I kept writing an Open University essay. When I was taken into hospital with a DVT in my leg, I sat there with my briefcase, finishing […]
Pillion – A film review and lessons learned
From time to time, I’m paying closer attention to the films, books, and essays that stay with me. Not as a critic, but as a writer learning to look more carefully. I often watch or read at surface level, for pleasure or distraction. Lately, I’m slowing that down, noticing what unsettles me, what mirrors deeper […]
Review: King and Conqueror — A Drama That Misses the Truth but Reveals Something Else
I hadn’t planned to watch King and Conqueror (a BBC drama) I already knew it wasn’t historically accurate. You expect a bit of dramatic licence in this sort of production, but what they’ve done here goes far beyond tightening timelines or simplifying subplots. They’ve changed major events, invented confrontations, and layered in symbolism that has […]
Seniorland: What an Ethnographic Study Reveals About How We Really Age
Most of us carry a faint, inherited picture of what a retirement community looks like. Sunshine, leisure, golf carts, cheerful marketing. A softer life. A quieter world. Somewhere else. And then a book like Seniorland forces you to look again. A few months ago, I reviewed Galit Nimrod’s ethnographic study of a large, age-segregated American […]
Why I’m Not Choosing to Grow Old Disgracefully
There’s a popular invitation in some circles to grow old disgracefully.A kind of rallying cry to rebel, to misbehave, to throw off restraint in the name of freedom and fun. I understand why it appeals.For many, it’s a counter to ageism, a refusal to fade quietly.But it isn’t my path. At this stage of life, […]
A Day in Hospital
Two weeks ago I spent a day in hospital having a lentigo maligna removed, a sun-damaged patch caught just before it could turn into skin cancer. Not a mole, though several people assumed it was. Just one of the quiet things that can appear on our skin as we age, the legacy of years spent […]
A Small Kindness at McDonald’s
I popped to the shops today and found myself opposite McDonald’s. I have a quiet fondness for a Filet-O-Fish, though I hardly ever have one, years rather than months. So I went in. I tried to use the ordering machine, but everything was geared towards meals, not a single sandwich. A member of staff noticed […]
In the Quiet Between Sentences: Reflections on Flesh
I finished Flesh this weekend. It’s just won the Booker Prize. What struck me wasn’t the subject matter so much as the way the book captures the interior life, the things we only understand with distance, the conversations that reveal more than the characters realise, and the moments that surface only when we slow down […]
When Fawning Becomes a Way of Life: Why I’m Finally Stepping Into Myself
There comes a point, often in our 60s, when we start seeing our past selves with a kind of gentle clarity. Not with criticism, but with recognition. We notice the patterns we carried through life. The adaptations that once kept us safe. The ways we softened ourselves to maintain harmony or connection. And sometimes we […]
Reflection on watching Die, My Love
I saw Die, My Love this week, a film about a woman whose life shifts after becoming a mother. She has moved somewhere new, with the intention of writing, of continuing the version of herself she had always imagined she was. And then the baby arrives, and her sense of self begins to unravel. The […]