You can make your mark on the world in another way. Today my daughter, like so many others in the UK, should have sat her final GCSE exam! But as we all know a fortnight before the Easter break schools were closed down because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Pupils have started going back in primary schools and Year 10 secondary but still no GCSE’s or A 'Levels. Predicted grades is where it’s at, mock exam results and performance within and at school. These calculated grades wil

Today a two year old gave me some joy back, delightful joy. Today I looked after my two year old niece and what a delight. 10am to 5pm, absolute day of fast paced joy. No stopping to ponder over thoughts or feelings - just a constant minute by minute, hour by hour barrage of trying to entertain and love a two year old. Perfect joy. The innocence of life, walking through the Minster gardens she stops to chatter to people, unaware of Covid-19 and distancing rules, chatter, cha

Beautiful silence, I thank you. SILENCE How beautiful you are. How tranquil and still you become. Bringing calm to an upside down world. Creating an endless possibility of thoughts. Sitting with my thoughts, letting them move freely in and out of my consciousness. Where will they take me? A new idea? A new beginning? Sit in the silence and let it in. I hear the wind, making the leaves and trees sway and create movement. Busy thoughts jumping in and out of my mi

I do miss ‘normal’ life but I also don’t want ‘normal’ life to resume again, once lockdown is fully over. Today is Saturday. We still have a form of normality in our house. Both adults still working here. My son he’s lost all sense of days: weekdays and weekends. My daughter has been working so has some grasp on the days of the week still. I’ve made a plan for the weekend, what I want to do and what we’ll cook as a family over the next few days. Just as I would have if we

I want lockdown to end. It’s like a constant Jekyll and Hyde thing going on: good and evil. I know why and I respect that but then I want it to be over! God I feel like shit. I’ve woken up feeling depressed. It’s Sunday! It’s my bro’s birthday. I feel emotionally shit! Why? Why are we still in ‘this’? We are still playing this game of ‘lockdown’? Of course I know why and I’ve written about it so many times within this book over the past six weeks. But WHY? It’s depressing, f

Do we even need a Bank Holiday? Good Friday? Good? A Bank Holiday? What does that even mean in 2020? Do we even need a Bank Holiday? No. We need life to get back to normal. Where we can drive to our families and friends houses, they open the door without caution and embrace the fuck out of you! Hug us so hard it hurts 💙 Sit close with them on the sofa so our bodies are touching. Touching in a I love you way not a sexual way. I wonder how the ‘non-hugg

I thrive on love, happiness and been with people who I love and they love me. Today I’ve had the realisation that when my new niece/nephew is born (in the next month) I won’t be able to hold him or her. What an absolute crock of shit. It’s shit! What is this all about? A virus that stops you holding and hugging your nearest and dearest. Stops you holding a newborn- smelling their brand new skin, whispering your love for them in their ears. Telling them you love them unconditi

is a chapter and will come to an end! My life in chapters! What did Shakespeare say “All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players” I think of the world, my life in chapters of books! Or scenes of a play! Some scenes or chapters are AMAZING, exciting in fact and some are SHIT, pure shit! But one thing is for sure they always have a beginning, middle and end! End - that’s the important bit to a crappy chapter or scene - and the end will come, it always will.

Clap for the NHS 8pm NHS - clap for the NHS. Go outside and clap for the NHS. Of course I will and I did but I didn’t think anyone else would be doing it. And the darkness was filled with the wonderful sound of applause. Applause for our NHS - the workers, the carers, out there working during the Coronavirus pandemic. The NHS - the controversy that it is! The sign on the side of ‘that’ bus, that made so many people vote to leave the EU. The NHS that has been used as a pawn in

I know it well! HOPE, I know it well. I’ve had to really understand what it means. In fact four members of my family have a tattoo: @banksy “there’s always HOPE” red balloon on different parts of our bodies. I have mine on my ankle, as does my sister. When I was 31 with a one and three year old, my sister got stage 3 breast cancer, she was 34. HOPE was truly learnt from then on. HOPE is part of my life, it gives me clarity and calm, as does being thankful. I hope this part of

It's not fair. Tomorrow my beautiful, clever, funny, singer-songwriter daughter will finish Year 11. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Coronavirus has brought on a blunt and severed end to twelve years of education. 12 years with some of the same wonderful friends. 12 years ending on an unplanned and unprepared ending. An ending full of confusion, bewilderment, anger and sadness. A sadness that they couldn't show the world what they are made of with their GCSE results. A sad

I have changed and it’s now me against my own willpower from now on ❤️ My beautiful daughter Maddie came home from her Saturday job yesterday with a surprise - A Bettys Bag - inside the traditional and classic cake box. I was instructed not to open it until tomorrow. I woke thinking about the box in my fridge, trying to hide the excitement from my husband! As I didn’t want to look like a foolish giddy child, but I failed miserably hiding my excitement!! Haha I made a coffee a