I joined a gym. Again. Apparently, I’m a person who enjoys paying for the privilege of being uncomfortable before sunrise. I’ve always been relatively active. At 16, I was playing badminton three times a week and taking aerobics once a week. I loved the feeling, and it was addictive. Then, at 18, I decided to…

South Africa Has My Heart ❤️ The drive to the airport felt different this time. No one beside me double-checking the passport was in the bag, no one to split the parking fee with, and — crucially — no one to blame if I’d forgotten something. Just me, a boarding pass for a fourteen-hour flight,…

Every dog owner has one story. The one that begins as a lovely walk and somehow ends with you questioning every decision you’ve ever made. This is ours. It started on the beach. I was out with one of our dogs – the little one. I walk our two dogs separately so they each get…

Every house has one. That room. The one that starts life full of promise and quietly evolves into a holding area for things you can’t quite commit to. Not important enough for the loft. Too useful for the bin. Too expensive to replace. Too sentimental to part with. Our spare bedroom becomes the Switzerland of…

“Living the dream” is a regular, old, probably HR-questionable joke that gets wheeled out at work almost every day. Me: “How’s it going?” Colleague: “Living the dream.” Me: “Congratulations.” Nobody laughs particularly hard anymore. It’s become one of those workplace traditions, like pretending the printer will behave today or believing the meeting scheduled for thirty…

50 Shades of Dodgy Haircuts Years ago, I had a great hairdresser. She knew my hair better than I did. Then one day she sold up and moved on, taking her great hair cutting skills and a small piece of my spirit with her. Since then, I’ve been on a decades-long quest for a decent…

Birthday. Age: 50 (HOW). Biscuits consumed: celebratory. Emotional stability: holding, just. Woke up this morning officially fifty. FIFTY. Half a century. A solid, respectable age at which one should, theoretically, own matching towels (I do, actually) and understand how pensions work (I have a vague knowledge). Instead, found myself sitting on the edge of the…

I’ve been manifesting since I was small. Back then, I didn’t know it was manifesting — I just assumed I had supernatural powers and was one dramatic motion away from summoning a dragon. To me, manifesting is basically wanting something so intensely that the universe eventually caves in like, “Fine, take it, just stop staring…

It’s a beautiful spa-like space, but not really. My bathroom is not one of my favourite rooms in the house. Since we move into this house some years ago, the bathroom is the one room we haven’t made improvements to. Don’t get me wrong, it’s clean and functional. It’s just not to my taste and…