From Radio Poetry: If mothers nuture and protect they also hate and get beaten up and they run away and scenery is as indifferent to our perception of it as God is This is a stanza from a poem by Doris Leadbetter, my old writing teacher and one of the greatest mentors of my life….
I type this as Keira sleeps restlessly behind me on the couch, exhausted after a bad night. We hopped off the plane and into a sick nightmare – exacerbated by the cabin pressure on her poor ears, and I feel for her because it always happens to me. Riley barked like an asthmatic hound during…
Okay, so it’s harder to talk about what’s happened over the past week than I originally thought it would be. You might need to wait just a bit longer. My thoughts turn to home today, not only because it’s another day of predicted high-fire danger, but because we fly back tomorrow. ‘Normal’ life must resume….
© Christopher Bird Reproduced here with permission
Maddy has written a post about how her son has shared Surprise! with their local library. It was a joy to read. ****** Dad’s funeral was yesterday. I will try and write something this week about it. I feel like I need to, want to, because (to me) it looked like half the town showed…
“Which one of you is the author?” My sister and mother discretely deferred in my direction and I smiled at the council worker. “Oh! I bought your book. I had to order it through the bookshop. It is so lovely, such a wonderful message it sends.” “Thank you.” Ordinarily, this kind of exchange would have…
Read / February 21st, 2009
I’m guest posting over at MamaPop today with an article I wrote at the beginning of the week, before…well, you know what. Come on over and say hi. I’m talking about Madonna and Like a Prayer. Thanks again for each and every message of support. I’ve been informed that some people are making donations to…
My father, Ronald James Browne, passed away a half-hour after my post earlier today. He died just as my plane was beginning its ascent up to 37,000 feet. It was 3.30pm. The cause of death was complications arising from his motor neuron disease; that being, he caught pneumonia and he was unable to fight it….
How things can change in the space of an hour. This morning, my mother called to say my father was admitted to hospital, but not to panic yet, she’d call me later. I needed to get out of the house, so went for a drive into the city, by which point Adam met me saying…
