Come up with a crazy business idea.
Bookshops with wine!
Okay, so I did steal this one from a (very) cheesy Christmas movie.
Nonetheless….wouldn’t it be fabulous. The sort of place you’d never want to leave!
‘Our treat mum!’
Tuesday 23 December 2025
Well knock me down with a feather, you will not believe what happened this evening…
I have children back in residence. All three are currently here and, in many ways, it feels like a regression back to the teen years. Everyone but me having a lie-in. Mostly just me cleaning the house, grappling with shopping bags and deciding what we are all going to eat. And… the squabbling, oh my goodness the squabbling….get me out of here!
And so, this evening, as Prom Dress daughter finally finishes work, I suggest that we all do exactly that! Get on our glad-rags, leap in the car and celebrate with tea at a local restaurant.
It goes down a treat.
I drive, drop off the offspring and then go to park. By the time I’ve navigated to a space in the local multi-storey and trekked back to our eatery of choice, they have ordered themselves cocktails and all is relaxed and happy. We have a lovely evening, but the seismic shock comes when we summons the bill….
Before I can even start looking for my purse, the bill is whisked out of my hands, and I hear the phrase,
“No, mum, this is our treat!“
Err, what’s that you say? Did I hear right? Oh my goodness; I am momentarily lost for words …this is an absolute first!
Naturally, I pull myself together to convey effusive thanks because I am completely bowled over by this. After so many years of paying for everyone and everything, this feels like quite a moment.It feels incredible. It needs to be marked. It must be recorded and remembered.
And so it is that I give it a blog post of its own..
The Christie Garden of Hope
Friday 19 December 2025
It is the last Friday before Christmas, which in these parts mean it’s ‘Mad Friday’! And, as I meet a friend for festive drinks, the city centre is certainly starting to liven up.
In the steamy Christmas Market cabins, glasses of Gluhwein and tankards of beer lubricate the larynxes for many a rowdy rendition of ‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart…‘ and ‘… the boys of the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay...’. Other bars are equally a-buzz of business and many shops are cashing in on a flurry of late night shoppers.
But then we turn a corner…into Manchester’s St John’s Gardens on Lower Byrom Street.
All is suddenly calm, gentle classical music floats in the air and a magical sight lies before us. A sea of illuminated roses, most white and some blue, cluster together and cover the gardens in every direction. We appear to have stumbled across somewhere very special; it is just stunning and completely stops us in our tracks.
What is this place?
We learn that it is The Christie Charity Garden of Hope, a beautiful immersive light installation made up of hundreds of pre-lit white roses — each one displaying a message of love and hope dedicated to someone special.
Its aim is to raise vital funds for The Christie Charity, supporting their lifesaving and life-changing work for people affected by cancer and, what a beautiful way to do this, creating a collective tribute of light and love to brighten the festive season. We take a while to wander, reflect and, for now, be thankful.
As we leave this perfect space, it is quickly back into the hurly burly of Mad Friday and I enjoy this too! But the peace and beauty of the Garden of Hope, that stays with me long after our final drink is poured and a last chorus of ‘Fairy Tale of New York‘ is sung…..
A boozy cream tea for Christmas!
Thursday 18 December 2025
What a top treat; an afternoon of cocktails, cream tea and too much red wine with my bestie…this was just what the doctor ordered!
Okay, well probably not the first piece of advice any responsible medical professional would give but, nonetheless this was very much needed. Let me elaborate…
I currently find myself juggling one full time job and three side-hustles. It’s a long story of navigating a new-ish world of work, after steadier school jobs for 30+ years, saying ‘yes‘ to too many offers and in such a higgledy-piggledy order that I am in gainful employ six days a week. I really love most of it …but six days is relentless.
Mix in some festive concerts, which I’ve sandwiched into the few gaps on my calendar and it is safe to say that a week out from Christmas, I am done!
So, I book an afternoon off, call my bestie to arrange our annual ‘cream tea’ and set out to let my hair down and forget about responsibilities for a few hours. And it is fabulous: incredible cocktails, sumptuous red wine and the sort of terrific conversations you can only have with a pal whose known you for 5 decades and is every bit as tipsy as your are.
A marvellous re-charge of the batteries and the perfect curtain raiser to the holidays. I now feel fully in the mood for seasonal frivolities. So, as afternoon melts into evening, join us in a final toast to friendship, to festivities and to finding your way in new jobs and challenges ….
I got on the plane!
Friday 31 October 2025
In recent years, I’ve become a regular at the local airport; dropping off, picking up, loitering at the arrivals gate, paying astronomical parking fees (even once being fined for forgetting to pay them!). I swear that some of the staff now greet me by name! But the one thing I’ve not done… since 2019… is fly anywhere. No, I have been strictly a chauffeur…until this weekend!
Yes, readers, I actually get on the plane!
With my two salaried daughters, who now pay for themselves, I jet off to Brussels for a long weekend. I am beyond excited. I refuse to have ‘carry on luggage only’ and fork out for a 20kg case. Overpack to ridiculous proportions, fill my purse with Euros, doubtless drive the girls insane …. and what fun I have!
Brussels could just possibly be the perfect weekend destination. Not too big, effortlessly elegant and a delight to while away the hours in.
We shop, we stop regularly to sample the famous beer, we eat … lots of frites, plenty of waffles and, of course the reknowned ‘Moules’
and we just enjoy wandering around the pretty streets and squares.
Some parts of the city so French, other, such as the Grand Place with its heavy Gothic architecture very … I was going to say Germanic, but Flemish is probably more accurate. We certainly take a lot of pics!
All too soon I am being dragged reluctantly back to the ‘Flixbus’ stop to start the return leg to Blighty. I would love to have stretched this out for another 24 hours. Back on home soil, I do manage to briefly extend our break when I espy and report an ‘unattended bag’ on the shuttle back to the car park and we, along with all the other passengers, are evacuated …. for 15 minutes until the next shuttle arrives!
But it’s only a short delay until I am back home… and already dreaming of my next trip. The financial barrier of paying for everyone and everything seems to be gone (for now), and my travel bug is definitely back!
University Reunion
Saturday 28 September 2025
Four decades after arriving at University as an excited 18 year old, I head back for my first ever alumni event.
Well what took me so long? And the answer is, I really do not know.
Loved University. It had been my dream to go and it was everything and more that I could have hoped for. The best part of it, without question, the wonderful friends I made and still see today. And I suppose that amidst the business of life, a job that invaded most weekends and children to bring up single handed, I just never found the time and energy to race back to Cambridge for a rushed weekend when I already spend much quality time with my favourite folk from the student years.
But now, I am in a different phase. My children are all grown-up, my job is far more flexible ( and joyously, evenings and weekends have returned to my life.) So, a weekend in Cambridge with old friends, fine dining and lashings of alcohol? I say, count me in!
I arrive in a small group but even so, am initially a little thrown. Our beloved student bar, with its wooden alcoves and pinball machines is no more. In its place a glossy renovation, not unlike a hotel foyer that leaves me a little cold. Then in mild panic I stare around the room thinking ‘who are all these people?‘ But I am rescued by the genius that is the name tags – to be fair 40 years is a long time and without those badges anyone would struggled to place a few faces – and am soon bus catching up; filling in the gaps of those missing years.
Additionally, it is an action packed schedule. We have a Provost’s Talk, on the state of world order, and are dazzled by the name dropping from top talent at the Wall Street Journal to hobnobbing with Ursula von der Leyen at the UN! By contrast, Evensong in the Chapel is a pause for calmer reflection. Here the wonderful choir fill that glorious Gothic building with music, and beauty and, for 45 minutes anyway, the world’s worries melt away and all seems at peace.
But the main event is the dinner and drinks…oh so many drinks. And now the conversation changes from current lives, jobs and children to crazy times from decades ago when we were young and often very foolish. Ill-advised liaisons, the infamous football/netball dinner, the nightmare of mathematics exams and the mystery of the nut cutlet and its collision with an illustrious portrait on the wall of the college dining room. These and many other memories and shared and laughed about and put to rest… I guess until the next time we meet.
Because there will definitely be a next time for me … this has and always will be my happy place…
A delight in the ordinary people…
Wednesday 27 August 2025
Did you know that 70 years ago today, the first GWR (Guinness World Record) book was published?
Yes; that is the glorious news that broadcasts from my radio this morning and over a morning cuppa, I listen to the fascinating back story of this stalwart of British society. The beloved tome, actually stems back to 1951, when Sit High Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery had an idea for a book to settle a pub argument about the fastest game bird. He hired Norris and Ross McWhirter, who compiled facts and statistics, resulting in the first edition of The Guinness Book of Records, published on August 27, 1955, in the UK. Initially intended as a promotional item for the brewery, the book quickly became a bestseller and an annual Christmas gift for so many of us in the 1970s and 1980s.
Did I say glorious news? I absolutely did. Because for the next 15 minutes, in place of the usual grim news that has clouded this Summer in the UK, we celebrate memories of the crazy, the quirky and the downright fabulous. The world’s longest moustache, the most people on a surf board, the tallest lego tower, the record for winning the most gurning world titles.. and of course those longest of curling fingernails … there really is no end of creative ways to get your name in the history books!
It is the tales of often ordinary folk doing something extraordinary for the very joy of challenging oneself, grabbing life by the horns and living it to the full. And, unlike most of our daily depression of news, it cause no hate, no harm and no division. In fact, it makes me laugh out loud and transports me, in an instant, back to my childhood.
You must be with me, fellow UK survivors of the 1970s and 1980s. For who doesn’t recall the TV show? The exuberant Roy Castle, tap dancing across the screen, trumpet in hand and inspiring the tea-time viewers with his round up of the latest wacky record to fall.
Was it a simpler, nicer time back then? Is the crazy, the quirky and the downright fabulous actually the best of ‘ being British’ …or is it just an affectionate wave of nostalgia?
All too soon the radio presenters of 2025 move onto other stories. It is predictably gruesome, so I opt for a few more moments in the past. I flick the off- button and head to my desk instead singing a cheerier tune
If you want to be the best . And you want to beat the rest . Ooh-ooh! Dedication’s what you need
A weekend with a culture vulture…
Sunday 27 July 2025
When my ‘culture vulture’ friend comes to town, I know it is going to be a full on weekend of arty exploration and experiences …
On Saturday we head to Haworth and Bronte country. The picture postcard town and the Parsonage, where the family lived, are popular tourist spots; but this is not the main focus of our trip.
No we park the car, don our walking gear and set out on the 4-mile hike to Top Withins, a ruined farmhouse on the moors, which the Bronte hopefuls have suggested may be the inspiration for Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights itself. Could any expedition be more up my street…I really struggle to imagine one!
Whilst the literary critics are less convinced about the theory and the Bronte Society itself claims that ‘The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described‘, no-one can deny the setting, which is wild, remote and wonderful
“Top Withens and the views from it encapsulate the landscape that inspired the Brontës’ writing and continues to be a place of pilgrimage for visitors from all over the world“
And I am sold. My mum claims that my middle name was chosen in homage to the heroine of this novel and so, in my fanciful head, even the wind carries whispers of ‘Cathy’ and ‘Heathcliff’ as we trek towards our destination.
Yet, even a romantic fool such as I cannot ignore the clear signs along the route that we have moved on from the 19th Century. The beautiful ‘Bronte waterfall’ lies roughly half way along the trail and, not only are there quite a few other ramblers gathered here, but also signs in both English…and Japanese!!
Well… you can’t have everything I guess . Plus, as we eventually, find our way back to Haworth, ( after trying to forge our own circular route adds, in hindsight, an extra 30 minutes to our journey) I must confess that the distinctly modern reward of an Iced Matcha Latte is a welcome delight!
Revived and refreshed, we find time to stroll the pretty cobbled streets of Haworth and visit the family home at the Parsonage before wending our way home.
Sunday dawns and we set the SatNav for Liverpool and the Biennial, the UK’s largest contemporary visual arts festival.
Liverpool is always a fantastic place to visit, pulsating with life, colour and personality. And it is a perfect setting for such an innovative arts trail. We see videos and installations in Chinatown, located in small warehouses and even a housing association. We explore exhibits in new arts centres and also established and esteemed galleries across the city. And we tour the magnificent Anglican Cathedral to admire tapestries and glass sculptures.
It is not simply art, its is also the location, and the festival celebrates the amazing sights and diversity of Liverpool itself. Between the installations, it is terrific just to stroll and enjoy this town. Lunch on the Docks with the sun dancing on the famous Mersey and the backdrop of the Liver buildings, well what could be better?
A fantastic weekend indeed and as my friend and I part company, at Lime Street Station, one of us on the train to London and one one of us heading back home on the M62 , we know we shall be meeting again soon. The question is … what adventures we’ll get up to next time!
Even better than Stevie Wonder?
Tuesday 8 July 2025
Did I even mention that Stevie is at the very top of my ‘top three artists I’d love to see live’ list?
I know, probably only about fifty times! Anyway, when a friend hears that my idol is coming a Manchester venue, they express-message the news in bold BLOCK CAPITALS
“STEVIE WONDER 5th August!!! How many tickets?”
And I can’t believe it, because in my heart I think I had never expected to actually make this dream come true.
So why do I pause? It is that date…that date rings a bell. I glance at the calendar. And I instantly know that I’ll be giving Stevie, and ‘Superstition’ and those sweet harmonica tunes a serve. Because we have an even better event to attend. Between the 4th and 7th of July, we have not one, but two graduations!
So pushing thoughts of funky soul music aside, we drive North for said July weekend, and what a time we have!
It is four days of unbridled joy. My baby girls, all grown up and graduated! Looking so happy and making me feel so unbelievably proud. The ceremonies and speeches are wonderful, the family meals fun and the fizzy wine freely flowing – looking at some of the pics, a little too freely!
Of course I shed the occasional tear. Hearing the newly qualified doctors all reciting ‘The Oath’ is quite a moment. And in Edinburgh, from high up in the iconic McEwan Hall, seeing Prom Dress daughter, the quiet little soul who didn’t speak for her first 6 months at school, turning to smile confidently to the audience as she receives her scroll, gives me goosebumps.
And of course there are some moments. Small boy and I stay in some very basic University accommodation in Edinburgh and both have to get suited and booted for the fanciful events in small public toilets! At some point, the memory of how is now a little hazy, we also acquire a tartan flat cap!
But perhaps the most unbelievable moment comes as Ex-Hub and I are watching a procession of new graduates leave the hall in the Scottishcapital.
Ex-Hub takes me aside to say,
I feel so proud but you; you must feel incredible. For all you’ve done I wanted to say. ‘Thank you’
I am dumbfounded. If I’d never believed I would ever see Stevie Wonder in person, then this pales against this. These are simply words I never even dared to dream of hearing! Nothing short of miraculous.
But let me not digress; this weekend and this post belong to my beautiful daughters and to both of themI say,
I got faith in you girl
Stevie Wonder single 2016 from the Soundtrack to Sing
You go out, shape this world for the better and live your best lives now.
As for Stevie, now that I have been convinced that miracles can happen, … maybe next time?
Small boy’s freshly baked bread …
Tuesday 29 July 2025
“Mum, what’s for lunch?”
This is my nineteen year old son! I am in the middle of a work meeting and have been up since seven, he is still in his dressing gown and has not looked up from the X-Box screen for the last two hours! It is safe to say that I am not amused.
Making sure I am on meeting-mute, I call back ‘sort yourself out; I am busy‘ and then I return to the day job.
A couple of hours later, I head downstairs for a coffee break and… what a sight greets me! Smallboy still in dressing gown but vigorously kneading bread dough in the kitchen!
“What on earth are you doing?” I half-shriek
Smallboy give me a floury smile, and looking pretty pleased with himself explains
“Well you told me to sort my lunch out, there’s not a lot of food in the fridge, so I decided to make a loaf of bread”
Well there your have it! I can only laugh out loud. It is so typical of my third-born. My theory is that being born last into a house of three under-fives, there was so little attention left that he long ago gave up waiting to parental approval or permission before launching into his latest exploit.
As a tiny toddler, he learned to assemble lego models independently … because everyone else was ‘too busy‘. I often lost him in the large Supermarket near our SouthWest house .. and invariably found him sitting happily in the coin operated trains and planes outside the cafe. Then, of course, there was the building of the basket-ball hoop and … on and on it goes.
In Harper’s Bazaar around the time of the birth of Kate and William’s third child , an article claimed that
You get wiser parents with each kid ….So third-borns grow up with more relaxed boundaries. These are the children most likely to be creative and risk takers.
Well, ‘wiser parents’ or just more pre-occupied ones I’m not so sure? The traits, for the child however, they definitely fit my son!
It is actually nearly 6pm by the time he has finished his masterpiece. As I have no advice to give, because I have never made bread, I set about putting the rest of our evening meal together. We triumphantly sit down to a feast of freshly baked bread, with cheeses, salad and red wine!
Tomorrow he’s baking again, as he thought that loaf number 1 was ‘a touch too dense‘. Many years of parenting him have taught me that it will just be easier to leave him to it…
Smashing Single Parenthood 