When we were first told to stay at home last March, I wasn’t really that bothered. We had recently enjoyed two long holidays in exciting places and I thought that being grounded for a while wasn’t such a bad thing. I was feeling a bit guilty about all those flights and thought that staying in…
Author: Sheridan
My future as a shaman
Further to last week’s blog about growing older and wiser, I’ve decided to pursue a new career. I know that I’m technically retired, but I’m not quite ready to give up on the world of work yet. Paid work that is. I have more than enough unpaid work. I’m thinking about setting myself up as…
Brain salad
I like to tell myself that one of the compensations for growing older is that as we move through life we acquire wisdom, which we generously share with our grateful offspring and younger colleagues. The problem is that there is limited room in my brain, and space has obviously had to be made to accommodate…
Just say no to dry January
Yesterday I was talking to a friend who is counting the days until the end of January. Not because it’s a dark, dank month (although it undeniably is), but because she’s given up alcohol until February 1st. “Why?” I wanted to know. “Why have you decided to give up one of life’s remaining pleasures when…
Where did that travel budget go?
Apparently, there is a lot of unused money swishing about the country in the bank accounts of people who would normally have spent it travelling. I have searched our bank account, but can’t seem to find any trace of it. I don’t think we’ve been the victim of a scam – having resolutely resisted all…
It’s life, but not as we know it
As we enter what feels like our tenth lockdown by now – it’s all merged into one and I’ve lost count – I find I am struggling to remember what life used to be like. It’s as though we’re living in a strange dream-like state with no end and no beginning. Was there ever a…
Oddities of the past year
Now that January has finally arrived and we can leave that terrible year behind us, I don’t think there’ll be much fond reminiscing about the year gone by. We’ll be cheering its passing. Still, we will remember this time for years to come and talk about it as a strange and remote period in our…
And so this is Christmas
Unsurprisingly, this year’s lead-up to the Christmas period has been unlike any other. No-one really knew what was going to happen, so people threw themselves into buying cards and presents, decorating the tree and festooning the house and garden with lights. They have done it very early and with reckless abandon in order to convince…
Age and attitude
There is no doubt that each generation thinks quite differently from the one before. I’m not suggesting that everyone in a given generation has identical views, but there is often a sort of shorthand among people of a similar age. For instance, I can’t imagine that the Queen and Dick van Dyke have much in…
Give us this day
Although not a great poetry fan, I have to admit that some of those poets knew a thing or two. Philip Larkin often has an unexpectedly sideways view of life and I have always enjoyed his lines from the poem Days: ‘What are days for? Days are where we live.’ On one level it looks…