There are many new years in any one calendar year. Today is another one - Nawruz or Nooruz. I’ve seen it spelt various ways. It’s an old Zoroastrian festival celebrated across the Middle East and Central Asia on the occasion of the spring equinox. It celebrates the new year on the day that winter ends… Continue reading New year, again
I have just renewed my WordPress subscription And I’m wondering why. Of all the writing I’m doing now, WordPress blogging is way down the list. I have signed up for a course called Edit Your Novel which is taking a lot of my thought and writing time. I signed up for the course despite not… Continue reading Happy New whatever
It's been a while since I wrote one of my weekly missives. Most weeks recently I just don't have the time, the inspiration or the energy to write something entertaining (for me or for you). I know the idea is you show up, you write and that is the work. But I feel like I've… Continue reading 46.2022
My new office cafeteria has a number of high bench seats that face the windows. Here you can sit with your back to the cafeteria and look out at the view. But I can’t help thinking how these were labelled in early pictures of the new building: seats for lonely eaters. It was probably a… Continue reading Seats for lonely eaters
I always dreamt about one day living in London. I'm not quite sure what I pictured this life would be, but presumably my dreams did not involve things like: queuing for a bus, cramming onto a crowded Tube, getting wet feet from a hidden puddle under wobbly paving on the footpath. But these are as much… Continue reading Love this city… (but sometimes I hate it too)
Last week was a long, tough week. Work ramped up with a big task landing on my desk on Monday morning with a Wednesday deadline. This task took up all of my Monday, preparing a first draft of the document and sending it out to the team who needed to review and add to it.… Continue reading The Rise and Fall (24.2022)
I hope you’ll excuse my recent burst of silence. I’ve been back from Australia for a while but was not much motivated to write last weekend, so you’ll miss all of my insightful comments on the Queen’s Jubilee. Actually I didn’t watch any of the pageantry or concerts or… any of it. We celebrated the… Continue reading Back into it (23.2022)
Good and bad news this week. Let's start with this week’s bad news: I lost a friend. Not a real friend, but someone whose voice I have listened to intently over the last two years. Someone whose relaxing tone helped me feel calm and focussed; someone who made me laugh; someone who helped me calm… Continue reading How to be a winner and loser at the same time (19.22)
Back from holidays and in need of some catching up with this blog and with all my writing in general. I'm carrying a lot of thoughts around in my head and I really need to start putting them down on real or virtual paper. I need to get back onto a more regular writing routine,… Continue reading May I? May 1 (17.2022)
Wednesday I go to sleep composing in my head the emails I didn't send today but need to send tomorrow. I wake up some time around 2:00am, listening to heavy rain smacking against the windows and find my mind caught in a thought loop about the different ways ough is pronounced in English. * thought… Continue reading Pre holiday panic (14.22)
Tales from Tobhamhor 