It’s a sign of the success of a charity, community group or small business when it can outlive its founder members. An organisation has reached its coming-of-age, when the vision of the people who set it up is so embedded, it can thrive and survive without them.
Continue reading “Review: Starting Up & Scaling Up A Human-First Business”Why I stopped writing books
It took an artist creating a paper model of Balsall Heath Park, a world-renown Imam explaining Ramadan to non-Muslims and the gifting of trees in an inner-city neighbourhood, for me to understand why I no longer write books.
Continue reading “Why I stopped writing books”Highbury Park: all we need to know is here
I started taking photos of Highbury Park during the 2020 lockdown, as, like many, walking became my exercise, my social life and my prayer. This image is of what I now call Cathedral Avenue – a row of lime trees that remind me of a nave.
Continue reading “Highbury Park: all we need to know is here”Review: 21 Miles, Swimming in search of the meaning of motherhood
Warning: Don’t read this post if you’re interested in fertility and haven’t yet read 21 Miles, Swimming in Search of the Meaning of Motherhood by Jessica Hepburn. I wouldn’t want to ruin what could be a beautiful experience for you.
This is not so much as a review, as 21 reasons why Jessica Hepburn should step onto the stage and take a bow. Continue reading “Review: 21 Miles, Swimming in search of the meaning of motherhood”
Does motherhood make you happy? (And other questions I’ve not had time to ask)
One of the hardest things about being a mother, for me, is that there’s no time to think about it.
It’s arguably the most important job you’re ever going to do and – apart from the twenty-seventh rendition of Thomas the Tank Engine – is utterly fascinating. And yet the demands of feeding, entertaining, wiping, holding, soothing and life-saving are so relentless it’s impossible to reflect upon what you’re doing as you are actually doing it. (I wrote about this at the time: Can you be a feminist if you can’t think?)
What I didn’t know during my child’s early years is that as your child grows so does the space to pause and consider. When he’s old enough to walk home from school alone, you gain an extra hour each day. When she can stay in the house on her own, you gain another hour, maybe two.
Now my child is aged 11, I’ve found it’s possible to mine that rich repository of milky, burpy, tired-as-zombie experience in a way that would have been an impossible luxury only a few years ago.
I will be doing that next month at Fertility Fest 2018, at the Bush Theatre, London between Tuesday 8 and Sunday 13 May.
Fertility Fest is the world’s first arts festival dedicated to fertility, infertility,modern families and the science of making babies. I was part of the first Fertility Fest in Birmingham last year so I know it will be a thoughtful, emotional, caring and beautiful occasion. (I can’t tell you how much it made me cry.)
Lots of questions will be being asked:
- How does not being able to make a baby make you feel about your body?
- Are there different pressures and prejudices about infertility depending on the community you come from?
- What makes you angry in the field of fertility, infertility, modern families and the science of making babies?
- Why do we not talk about miscarriage?
The question I’m most looking forward to is one posed by the incredibly engaging and generally awesome Jessica Hepburn: Does motherhood make you happy? Jessica, who co-founded Fertility Fest, asks 21 women that question in her new book: 21 Miles.
I can’t wait to read it, not least because not all of the women said: “Yes”. I know that motherhood has made me happy; very happy indeed, even when it’s meant I haven’t had time to think. But I will relish the opportunity to reflect upon why – and do that with other mothers and those who longed to be mothers. We are woven together with the same golden thread, my sisters.
School run
Sometimes it really was a run – down School Road once the morning bell had gone, up School Road as you raced back with your friends.
Other times it was a walk, a scoot, a dwardle and a climb.
Parenting raises deep questions about who we really are
Many of the conversations I have at the school gates, on football touchlines or in cricket pavilions are really conversations about identity.
We think we’re talking about the 11+ or goalies or whether it’s better to learn classical piano or bass guitar – but what we’re actually talking about is who with think we are. Continue reading “Parenting raises deep questions about who we really are”
Cruising for introverts
Casinos, karaoke, making the deck of the ship throb with the lights and sounds of Ibiza…this was some of the “fun” promised to guests setting out on a Caribbean cruise by Carnival Cruise Director Felipe Curato this week. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have disembarked straightaway. Continue reading “Cruising for introverts”
Fertility Fest: Why do one in six couples feel alone?
A very good question is going to be asked in Birmingham on Saturday, 28 May 2016. If one in six couples experience some form of infertility, why do they feel so alone? Continue reading “Fertility Fest: Why do one in six couples feel alone?”
Loneliness: Accident or Injustice?
I am delighted to announce the publication of Loneliness: Accident or Injustice?
Loneliness: Accident or Injustice was commissioned by the Diocese of Oxford (Board of Mission) and the Archway Foundation in response to research by the Church of England and Church Urban Fund which found social isolation was the most wide-spread social concern of our time. Continue reading “Loneliness: Accident or Injustice?”