Mother has a silver salt cellar cupped in her hands which she holds out towards me as if she were a beggar. Her gesture reminds me of the scene in the musical Oliver when the young Oliver asks for a second portion of gruel. I am unsettled by her gesture and my reaction to it, butContinue reading “Never look your mother in the mouth”
Tag Archives: Family life
Walking boots, sweaty socks and scary phonecalls
I take off my walking boots and sweaty socks in the porch of the cottage and hobble bare foot to the kitchen mantel piece, where my mobile phone is charging below a map of the Brecon Beacons. The family and I have been out walking along the River Usk for over four hours and weContinue reading “Walking boots, sweaty socks and scary phonecalls”
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My mother wants to know what existentialism is
Breakfast. Mother licks her index finger and pats it onto the crumbs of pain au chocolate on her plate, while casually asking my daughter what existentialism is. ‘It was all the rage thirty years ago. But you don’t hear people talking about it anymore,’ Mother says, as if mourning the end of the golden ageContinue reading “My mother wants to know what existentialism is”
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What a balding man sees in his mirror in the bathroom
As you get older, the bathroom mirror can be a cruel friend The balding man in the bathroom mirror has a double chin and jowls which droop like the sails of a yacht on a windless sea. His blue eyes have faded to grey. The skin under his eye sockets sags like an airbag whichContinue reading “What a balding man sees in his mirror in the bathroom”
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Cannabis gravy: legal after the US trade deal?
Will Brexit bring us cannabis gravy?
