Posts by swsweb
The Shocking Pain of Loss
A friend of mine died recently. It was unexpected and the news came as a sudden and great shock. I heard about it via a message from her mobile phone. To read a message from her number telling me that she is no more made it seem all the more unbelievable. Much of my…
Read MoreTime for a Collective Deep Breath
It wasn’t so long ago that we were all social-bubbled up together and longing to see our loved ones again. The fear of coronavirus left us restricted in a way that, pre-March 2020, we could never have imagined. After some false and unnerving starts, release slowly went ahead until now we are – almost –…
Read MoreWhy Every Court Needs A Fool
Anyone who knows anything about Shakespeare’s plays will know one of the starring roles often belongs to the fool. He is the person who tells it like it is. He’s the one who advises the monarch not to do what he’s about to and who foresees what might happen if he does. (His other role…
Read MoreFacing The World Again
A few weeks ago, many of us were wondering when life was going to be back to normal again. In the past days, we’ve had the terrible story of Afghanistan and the natural disasters in Haiti and who’s now talking about Covid? Funny how the world moves on so fast. Just for a moment, I’m…
Read MoreThe Curse of Catastrophic Thinking
I was left to take charge of a cat for a couple of days recently. The cat stayed in his location and I had to go over and organise the feeding arrangements. Here’s a little background information. He was a house cat; he’s become an outdoor cat and he’s developed into quite a rat/mouse catcher.…
Read MoreIf Not Now, When?
Our PM was referring to the opening up of the country after our latest lockdown when he said those words. I’ve lost count whether it’s the third lockdown or the end of one continuous lockdown but, for once, Boris Johnson’s words made sense to me. If not now, when? A powerful question. A question that…
Read MoreLet’s Hear It For The Quiet Ones
It’s been a hard 16 months and we all have stories to tell about how lockdown has affected us. I’m hoping we’re coming to the end of it now. I’m also hoping that we humans, being generally very resourceful, may find we forget all our visceral feelings more quickly than we’d expect. But there’s one…
Read MoreThe Expansion of the Mid-Life Crisis
There was a time when a mid-life crisis was associated with someone giving up their old family life in exchange for a new and potentially more exciting one with a new partner. For some people, there’s the temptation to start again and to put right the wrongs that we may have done to ourselves when…
Read MoreLove The One You’re With
The pandemic has had a dramatic effect on the communication skills of very small children, according to a recent study of some 50,000 children between the ages of four and five. The survey was conducted for the Education Endowment Foundation, an independent charity, and the findings indicate up to 25% of children in this age category…
Read MoreFools Rush In
On Friday, April 9, 2021 at 10.40am, I was proceeding in a north-easterly direction … okay, enough of that. I was driving across a London bridge going from south to north when a police motorbike outrider – coming from east to west – drove up ahead of me and decisively indicated for me to stop.…
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