Category: Personal

Reflections about my life.

When you’re between life’s highs and lows …
```
".... seems sometimes 
you’re travelling 
in circles
mountains you thought 
you’d conquered
rise up before you 
again and again ..."
```
It’s hard to believe that we returned from our big trip to Iceland and the Faroe Islands in mid-November. Winter has been and gone and before too long, we’ll be setting out on our next trip in the camper van. I’ll be honest, it took me some time to adapt to being back home, to being fully present. Part of me was still operating at a much slower pace, Scandinavian-style. I’m not sure I’ve every truly caught up, which suits me just fine.

Of course, I’ve slipped back into lots of things almost unconsciously. I’m mentally planning out my days and writing lists. I’m back to doing all the admin stuff that takes up so much of daily life: thinking about what to cook, then cooking it; wondering what to wear; doing laundry; sorting the household accounts; tackling housework. The trappings with which we’re all familiar, right? This is normal. I get that completely. Yes, occasionally it feels mundane. Part of me yearns for the road we took round Iceland’s West Fjords, choosing where and when to swim. But, at the same time, I sometimes have to pinch myself that I’m home in what is a beautiful part of the world. Spring is in the air, and I can go cycling or running straight out of my front door. I appreciate the comforts of home, the convenience of my washing machine and kitchen. I can meet friends for coffee, have lunch with my mum, sleep in my own bed. With a wardrobe full of clothes, I can chose to dress up or dress down (let’s be honest, it’s mostly the latter!). I’ve had a winter of cinema trips and dinners dates to add variety to all the household jobs aforementioned.

This is the reality for most of us, if we are lucky. It isn’t lost on me, that it’s a luxury to have a house to clean, clothes to wash, money to spend. You only have to listen to the news to appreciate just how privileged we are. Right now, I imagine a lot of people are going through very tough times. Life sometimes can appear very black and white, but it’s rarely that straight forward.

This week’s poem could easily have been written in these times; it feels as relevant today as it did when I wrote it over a decade ago. In my experience, most of life is lived on the plateau between the peaks and troughs. It doesn’t always feel that way, most especially when you’re going through a bad patch. But a patch it is: it isn’t permanent. For good or ill, nothing ever stays the same. The highs are just as impermanent as the lows. For the most part, we live in state of flux between physical and emotional states. Every now and again, the balance will feel just right. In my own experience, that’s rare, but can and does happen.

If you, like me, are blessed, you’ll have stretches of time when life feels normal, perhaps even ordinary. Don’t underestimate times like this! I have a ceramic coaster in my house that reminds me to: enjoy the little things as one day you will look back and realise they were the big things. It sounds simple but also very wise. I wrote this poem during a difficult time in my life, juggling competing demands both at home and at work. It forced me to focus on what matters most in life. I realised it wasn’t the highs or lows where life was most lived, but in the spaces between. Give me mundane any day of the week, I’ll take it and be grateful.

the plateaux between Download
15/04/2026
When old traditions take on new meaning …
```
"... I think I understand 
why wild animals hesitate 
when they are released
back into the wild 
what has been is known 
and what is known feels safe ..."
```
This week’s poem is a complicated one to categorise by year. It was first written in 2016, soon after the death of my best friend, but I’ve recently reworked it. Funny how a poem that once felt finished can be reborn. I suppose it’s a fitting reflection on how grief works. It is never still and never truly leaves you. It evolves.

The title of the earlier version of this poem was Easter Saturday. I was later advised by a good friend, that I was mistaking Easter Saturday, (which is the first Saturday after Easter), with Holy Saturday, (which is the last day of Holy Week). It was on Holy Saturday 2016 when the earlier poem was written, on that mourning day between the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was always a quiet, meditative day in the Catholic world of my childhood. Holy has become an uncomfortable word for me, although it does appear in the poem. According to Wikipedia, another name for Holy Saturday is Easter Eve. I prefer that; like Christmas Eve, it feels anticipatory.

It’s safe to say, I think, that we’ve all experienced significant endings in our lives. Be that the death of someone you loved, or perhaps a bereavement or closure of another kind. You might have felt a sense of loss when a job has come to an end, a study course or a great holiday. Perhaps you’ve experienced an empty nest when your child has gone off to university or on a gap year (don’t worry … they’ll probably be back!). I’m told that many people feel an aching loss when they retire (not my own experience!). Whatever it is or has been, it’s often hard to let go and move on. Depending on the nature of your loss, you may feel you never can. Life doesn’t return to normal following a bereavement, for example, but it eventually shifts, continuing in a different way.

It’s sometimes tempting to stay in your version of Easter Eve, whatever it may be. Queen Victoria famously never stopped mourning the death of Prince Albert, withdrawing from public life for over a decade. There’s that poignant scene in the film Hamnet, when Agnes lingers in the home she must vacate for a new house in Stratford. It is the place, of course, where her young son died. It’s a silent scene because words are unnecessary. Everyone can surely sense and understand her reluctance to leave.

There are moments in life when we wish time would stop. It most often happens to me when I’m experiencing something joyous, such as hiking recently with my cousin. I didn’t want the day to end; instead I wanted to cling onto that sense of being on top of a mountain with someone who had known me all my life. But it can also happen when experiencing a huge sadness; the feelings are so raw and deeply personal, you need time to sit with them. You want to feel the full force of that sadness, because it’s where you feel deeply connected to your loved one (or other experience). It somehow feels trivial to deal with everything else. Suddenly, your daily routines feel mundane and perhaps even meaningless.

That’s how I felt after that loss in 2016. Eventually, I gave myself a talking to, using language I’d never adopt with a friend. I told myself to pull myself together and stop wallowing in self pity. Harsh words. I wouldn’t talk to myself that way now.

Looking back, I can empathise with both sides of how I was feeling. I wanted to stay in my place of sadness, where I still felt connected to Karen, but at the same time, I knew I had to reconnect to the present, and to my life. It’s not an easy path to navigate and, on reflection, I appreciate the idea of Easter Eve. It creates a bridge between loss and new life, in whatever forms they take. I respect and value that.

It’s important to recognise when we need that time to wallow, but also to know we don’t have to stay there forever. We can cross the bridge and live life to the full whenever we’re ready. I wish you a Happy Easter, whatever side of that bridge you’re on right now.

easter eveDownload
01/04/2026
When walking away is the best you can do …
```
"... saying yes to you 
was a no to me 
your love an anchor
keeping me down 
when I might otherwise 
be free ..."
```
This is not an easy blog to write but it touches on something I know affects a lot of people. It took me a long time to realise that there’s no such thing as normal and that, for most of us, disfunction is the norm when it comes to family relationships. I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve met over the years, both personally and professionally, who are estranged from one or more family member(s). It can be for any number of reasons. It’s often complicated and painful, and it brings with it a whole plethora of emotions.

I’m not about to go into specifics about the family member from whom I’m estranged. That’s not necessary here, and I wouldn’t put you through the sorry details. Instead, I want to use this poem, written about my decision to walk away, as a way to connect with similar experiences and feelings you might have had. I know a lot of people find it extremely difficult. Some will feel deeply saddened, others guilty or cruel. It feels like an incredibly cold thing to do, to shut someone out. But it may also be necessary. It is never a decision taken lightly and, yes, it comes at a price. But, for me anyway, it’s a price worth paying.

We all have people in our lives that we might term difficult. And yet, we will largely tolerate their idiosyncrasies because we love them. We love all their positive traits and we can forgive the less attractive parts of their personalities that we find hard to live with. Most of us will have various categories of friends: from casual acquaintances to very best friends and everything in between. Not all the people who come into our lives as friends are friends for life. There’s a famous quote: people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime (attributed to numerous people, so I’m not sure who can actually claim it). And that’s okay isn’t it? It may feel uncomfortable when you lose touch with someone you thought of as a friend, or you may be devastated when they cut you off. Yet you realise in time that they weren’t meant to be around for the long haul.

But family is a whole other ball game isn’t it? There is this unwritten rule that you can’t walk away from family. Another famous saying goes, friends are the family you chose for yourself, meaning of course, that you have no choice when it’s family. But sometimes, you have to make a choice. In fact, we make choices about family all the time: where do you spend Christmas Day, for example. My parents divorced when I was a child, and it often felt like I had to choose between them. That feeling continued long into adulthood.

Some of our decisions are subconscious. As a middle child, instinct drew me to my younger sibling, when three always felt like a crowd. I have friends who are parts of big families and they tell me it’s inevitable to fall out with siblings when you have so many. I seemed to manage it even though I only had one of each!

Learning to navigate family relationships as an adult takes you to another level. As a child, you didn’t always have a choice, but as an adult you do. I said yes when I meant no to a family member more times than I care to remember. I tolerated the intolerable. Until finally, after one drama too many, I cracked. I reached saturation point and did the only thing I felt I could do to save myself. I walked away and never looked back.

The person you owe the most to is yourself and, if saying yes to yourself means saying no to someone else, then what’s stopping you?

yes to me Download
18/03/2026
Why I’m not ready to let go of winter …
```
"... waking gentle 
to slow mornings 
finding comfort in calm 
relishing winter’s 
precious pause 
delighting in nights 
dark and long ..."
```
Can you believe it’s March already? I used to welcome March like an old friend. If you asked me to pick a favourite month, I’m not sure I could choose between May and September. My least favourites have always been January and February, mostly due to the short days and miserable weather. The dirt track leading to our house truly lives up to its name at this time of year. It’s a challenge to get into the house without bringing in a ton of mud on your shoes.

As part of my job, I was expected to be in the office most days; in winter that involved weeks of going back and forth in the dark, with rain often lashing down for good measure. For years, I was relieved to make it through January and February, grateful for March when it arrived.

But this year has felt entirely different; I’m sure it’s because I’m no longer going out to work. This winter, free of work schedules, I’ve found my own rhythm, changed the pace of my days, settled into my skin. It has shifted my outlook on so many levels: physically, mentally and spiritually. My working year was an endless cycle of quarterly performance meetings, inspection timetables and looming deadlines. It was exciting but also exhausting. I was expected to interpret data, find solutions to problems, produce and constantly update plans; I had to know stuff to the point that my brain felt permanently full.

The first 6 months of retirement didn’t feel quite real because I wasn’t at home much of the time. I went travelling for a while. As I arrived back in the UK, autumn was giving way to winter. It’s in winter that I’ve come home, in more ways than one.

I listened to an interview with Fatima Bhutto this week by Sam Baker on her excellent podcast, The Shift. They discussed the sense of freedom they felt when they could admit to not knowing something. Instead of shame, they sensed opportunity. They didn’t feel the pressure to find a solution, simply because they felt, as they aged, they no longer had anything to prove. I can relate absolutely.

It has been such a release to let go of the burden of knowing stuff, free from the expectation of having the answer to someone else’s problem. It’s opened up space in my head just for me. Rather than follow my old work-schedule, I’ve been dipping into the Celtic Year, which is this year’s main theme for an online women’s group, of which I’m a member. February marks Imbolc, a festival closely associated with the goddess Brigid and/or St Brigid (or Brigit) who may be one and the same person, real or otherwise. Imbolc also marks the start of the lambing season and, in old Irish, means in the belly. In early February, it feels like a promise of things to come, but not quite yet.

It’s hard not to notice the emergence of spring because it’s literally everywhere! First the snowdrops appear, closely followed by crocuses and then daffodils. The days gradually grow longer. It all sounds joyous, and I know it will be, but I want to say: not yet. This year, I’ve matched winter’s pace. My days have felt gentle and muted. I’ve relished the opportunity to think and write by the fire, as short days gave way to dark nights. I’ve appreciated nature around me: the way trees preserve their energy; how slowly and surely old growth gives way to new; the resilience of birds who winter among us.

All this is reason enough to feel differently this year. I feel more in tune with my own body, more aware of the natural world of which I’m a part. Perhaps I’ve been out of sync in previous years, always too ready to throw off winter’s coat at the first hint of spring. Actually, Imbolc marks the halfway point between winter solstice and the spring equinox. Spring is not quite here, but around the corner. This year I’m willing to wait. Content to stay hunkered down in winter, ready at the threshold, to welcome in spring.

thresholds Download
04/03/2026
Why I’m glad of this life …
```
"... I am glad of this life
though it’s not what I planned
the rural retreat
with its long lazy days
not the idyll 
it first appeared ..."
```
At the turn of the century, way back in 2001, I took a career break, to coincide with my husband’s early retirement. We went to live abroad for a few years, which was an adventure to say the least. As I approached 40, I chose to go back to the UK and my full time job. People thought I was crazy. It took a while to sell our house and for a few years, we commuted between two countries, before finally settling back in Yorkshire.

This week’s poem comes from that time, partly inspired by Helen Dunmore, who read some of her poems in York as part of the York Literature Festival in 2008. I was in the audience and completely captivated. She’d recently published a collection of poems titled Glad of These Times and read the title poem. Now, don’t quote me on this, because whilst I feel this was the right year and the right event, I can now find no trace of it in my journal! She certainly came to York and I heard her read that poem. In any case, my homage-poem still rings true for me, despite my circumstances having changed repeatedly since then.

It’s a timely reminder that life does continue to evolve; whether you’re having a great life, or it feels tough right now, be assured that change will come. It always does; not only for us but for our planet as a whole. Even our landscapes are constantly shifting: I read in the news just recently that the black sand at Reynisfjara Beach in Iceland has disappeared back into the sea following a violent storm.

The truth is, nothing stays the same, which can feel both liberating and anxiety-inducing at the same time. If you find yourself torn between those two emotions, then try bringing yourself back to the present. That’s probably what you can most influence.

I felt glad to go back to work and pick up aspects of my life in the UK in the early 2000’s. I appreciated all the more the things I had missed when abroad: routine, purpose, bookshops and the opportunity to catch up with a friend over coffee, to name but a few. People assumed that our life abroad must have been better. It wasn’t better, it was just different. I was glad of the experience but equally glad to be home.

Now, I’m embarking on another life chapter, having recently retired. I’m ready to explore new opportunities, many of which will be extensions of activities I already enjoyed such as writing, cycling and keeping fit. It’s so important I think to make time for things that bring you joy now, in whatever present you’re in. Don’t wait. Do it now. Make it happen in a way that will work for you, even if it means compromise. Some joy is better than none at all, right?

I feel sure that some people reading this will be thinking, it’s okay for you to say that, now you’re retired. Yes I appreciate that. But I haven’t spent the intervening years between that career break and retirement wishing my life away. I’ve loved the challenges that work posed and fully embraced them. I enjoyed my job. But I loved my time off too and crammed in as much as I could, and I’ll continue to do so because it’s true what they say about retirement: time passes very quickly indeed!

I was so lucky recently to be able to spend a couple of days hiking with my slightly older cousin, who is also retired. My younger cousin, who still works full time, couldn’t join us. I sensed his frustration but I hope he stays anchored in the now and able to enjoy both work and play in equal measure. One day soon, perhaps he’ll join us on a hike, even if it means snatching precious time from an already busy schedule. That’s life isn’t it and we either embrace it or resent it. I, for one, am glad of it.

glad of this life Download
25/02/2026