Angel Jem's City Cottage

I haven't posted here or on How to Hygge since last Monday. Last Monday. Golly, around about 9.30pm last Monday, what a peaceful, innocent time that was. Let me say right now that none of my family were anywhere near Manchester Arena last Monday night, but several friends and acquaintances were and several friends of friends, including a girl whose friends go to Sarah's school. I've taken the week to think how to frame a response, how to express my thoughts and.... I don't think there are words to say, no neat twist of phrase that can capture the emotions. Anger, sadness, concern, hope, thankfulness, love, empathy, pain, worry, hope again, relief, anger at someone else, guilt, happiness, love and finally hope. Manchester has been through hell and back this week, although for some people they may well still be in hell. What has given me hope this week is the response of people from across the world to the atrocity. I am especially proud of my home city, Liverp...

So I sewed up a pair of slippers instead. As displacement activities go, it is one of my best. A couple of hours stitching, a couple of hours watching 15 to 1 (my quiz show of obsession at the moment) and a good rest. It would, after all, be what the Doctor ordered, if I ever got to see a Doctor. Unfortunately, and I guess I'm not alone in this, my surgery has a new system of appointments so that you can no longer book ahead an appointment unless you stand on one leg in a thunder storm for an obscure hour between gleaming and gloaming on a night that may or may not be a day as well. Or you have a telephone consultation with a doctor who may or may not want to see you that day. But if you do that, you must ring at 8am promptly to join the queue and talk to the rottweiler who may or may not pass your number on to the medic. I am not cross. I am not at all cross. I just hope that I actually never need to use the service until it has collapsed and recovered again. Back to...

I have been busy over the past couple of weeks. I think life (for me) seems to get faster the older I get. Certainly, I look back at the days of at-home motherhood with a yearning I didn't expect to feel. When the most I got done in a week was 2 or 3 days supply, and they weren't guaranteed. Work is pretty full time, of course, so I find myself trying to fit a life into 2 days of the weekend. And since I love me a good bit of downtime and solitude, I find I'm fighting the urges to rest and relax or to get up and do. So I feel very Jekyll and Hyde. I'm either calm efficiency and getting the house cleared well, or collapsed on the sofa, remote control in hand, guinea pig on stomach and bewailing the days when I was able to watch daytime TV alone. I have no idea how full time workers fit in housework. I know that possibly before I began full time work I should have cleared the house, so that I could now consider getting a cleaner in to do a bit for me. As it is, I ...