So here I sit, morning coffee in hand, sun streaming through my east facing bedroom window, and I am transported....
Humanity
Resisting the propoganda
After 16 hours and a short flight down to Gatwick, we finally took off for our destination, at one o’clock in the...
Redefining the hero narrative
“Show me your teeth!” It was not a request, but an order. Standing...
Reviewing the year with Harry Potter
An annual Christmas tradition in our family is watching the Harry Potter films in the week leading up to the big day. It is now seven years since we visited the studios where for three hours I totally lost myself in another world. Transported out of my own reality for...
Recalling genuine kindness
“Do you mind if I sit here?” I looked up and saw a woman in her late 40s carrying a tray of lunch. Yes, I wanted to say. Yes, I do mind. Actually. I chose to sit here, away from everyone else, at the furthest corner of the room, on a table on my own for a reason. “Of...
Remembering what we believe in
"Assumptions!" declared a voice. I looked up to find a tall man in a cassock and dog collar, clutching a bible to his breast. “It’s all about assumptions,” he repeated, looking triumphant. Assumptions, I wondered. Was that a book of the bible I had somehow missed in...
Revolutionary: Spaces for Listening
What do you gift yourself when you have everything you can buy and are unable to have what you really want, for your birthday? I was supposed to be working abroad, in my favourite country with my favourite colleagues and when that was cancelled due to Covid, my team...
Remembering that kindness works both ways
When my husband was called up urgently in the evening by a consultant haematologist to come into the acute assessment unit at the local hospital, on the same day as he had had a routine blood test at the GP practice, this was never going to be ‘normal’. My husband...
Recognising the smoke screens that help us get closer
I met ‘Aunt Es’ when I was 18. I had heard all about her from my Dad. She had introduced him to the Lake District and to Swallows and Amazons, which he read to me the long, hot summer of 1976 when I broke my arm, aged 8. My dad adored his ‘Aunt Es’ who was not his...
Recalculating the impact of change
A phenomenon. Live Aid. 1985. Hundreds of music industry people coming together, free of charge, to produce the world’s biggest cross continent concert to help others less fortunate than themselves. Where were you for Live Aid? This was a recent question on one of my...
Repackaging our greatest skills – for each other.
For the thirteenth year running I have been involved in an induction programme for surgical trainees starting their careers, post foundation training. As I scanned the computer screen (yes, it happened virtually this year as the last thing we wanted was to take...
Remembering Dolly and the nurture of nature.
It is Autumn now and I still really miss her. Every morning, that leap of joy as I went downstairs to see if she was still with us, and in the warm, soft evenings, talking gently under the tree, her eyes following me, knowingly, wise beyond her years. She...