Notes from April: Bringing ThriveSpan Into the World
April has been one of the busiest months I can remember. After years of thinking, writing, researching, revising, and refining, I finally signed off the manuscript for ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now. Reaching that point felt significant, though perhaps not in the dramatic way people sometimes imagine. More than anything, it brought a […]
Notes from March: Olderhood, Ideas, and Spring Reflections
Much of my writing this month explored themes that sit alongside my forthcoming book, ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now. Through a series of essays and reflections, I examined some of the assumptions that often shape discussions about ageing, particularly the tendency to view later life through the narrow lenses of work, productivity, and […]
Notes from February: Writing, Woodland, and Book Progress
February has been a steady and focused month, largely shaped by work on my forthcoming book, ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now. Early in the month I worked through the copy-edited manuscript, reviewing revisions carefully before returning it on 11 February. Since then, my attention has shifted to cover development and the early stages […]
When a Role Ends, Who Are You Then?
Recent events in UK politics have prompted me to reflect on something we rarely talk about openly: what happens to identity when a role ends suddenly. Not retirement.Not a planned transition.But the abrupt loss of a position that has shaped how someone understands themselves, and how others recognise them. In politics, we’re used to seeing […]
January: Writing, Research, and Speaking into the Moment
January marked a quieter but more concentrated phase of work for me. After a sustained period focused on ThriveSpan, I was able to step back from the book itself and turn my attention to the academic article that underpins it. That work matters to me. My writing on later life is not simply opinion or […]
Hamnet: What Remains, What Reaches Back
I went to see Hamnet at the cinema, with Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as Shakespeare. I had been warned partway through that it would be very sad, that I might want a handkerchief ready. But the tears didn’t come where people expect them to. We all know the child dies. That isn’t […]
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 […]
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 […]
Summer of Shifts
Summer of Shifts A Companion to Stepping Back Without Losing Yourself Some seasons change everything. Summer of Shifts traces one of mine: a summer of endings, rediscovery, and renewal. 📘 Free to download; this companion guide offers a glimpse into the lived experience behind Stepping Back Without Losing Yourself, exploring what it really feels like […]
Stepping Back Without Losing Yourself
Walking Gently Into What Matters Now After decades of striving, many of us reach a quiet turning point. We’ve achieved much, yet something inside whispers that it’s time for a different rhythm, one shaped less by pressure and more by presence. Stepping Back Without Losing Yourself is a deeply personal guide about what happens when […]