A Tale of Two Dogs

These are my two cockerpoos, Sid and Peggy. Sid died in June, aged fourteen and a half years. Peggy came to live with us at the end of August, aged nearly four months.  Amid my grief for Sid, I did what all experienced therapists do and googled ‘how long should I wait before getting another […]

Falling out of the trap

  It’s been a while since I posted something here. That’s partly because I’ve fallen into a trap. Not a big snappy metal thing with teeth or cheese, or a hole in the ground covered by leaves and netting. This is a trap I’ve made for myself and exists only in my head. Writing short […]

The book I should have written: ‘Bloody women and their bloody feelings’.

I haven’t written anything for here for a while. Trying to stay alive during a pandemic in the absence of confidence-inducing leadership has taken up quite a lot of energy. Apart from surviving, I’m also trying to write something longer than these pieces, that involves reading and understanding other people’s points of view. I’ve disappeared […]

Gaslighting and recovery

Over the course of last week, after the last votes were cast in the 46th presidential election in the United States, many of us developed an increasingly problematic compulsion: a need to stay tuned to CNN’s rolling coverage, its interactive map and the graphics of votes cast that changed at glacial speed. For me, the […]

Making the grade: how to cope with the aftermath of results day

Do you remember results day? Most of us have experienced at least one day where our exam scores were made public. The current cohort of Year 11s and Years 13s have also had SATs results at age 7 and 11 and those  coming through high school now will have passed or failed a phonics test […]

After this

I. After this I’m writing the day after a second three week lockdown was announced here in the UK. While there was an inevitability that the first three week period would be extended, and for many it is a relief, it was another reminder that life has changed beyond recognition for most of us. In […]

Chickens, eggs and emptying nests: fledging with your children

Our kids are growing up and out: their peers matter more to them than their parents. In evolutionary terms, they’re attaching themselves to a tribe outside their biological family to gather the support they’ll need for their adult lives. As they can join more than one tribe, they can also reinvent themselves; at home, you […]

Waking the trolls: speaking up on social media

I have a Twitter habit. It’s the first place I check the news and where I browse to find current information and debates on my hobby horses of counselling, education and dogs doing surprisingly human things. I have curated a timeline of wry, gentle souls; they form an imagined community who broadly reflect back to […]