Recursive Words

Onwards

After spending a night in a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris last night, my eldest daughter boarded a plane to Amsterdam first thing this morning, then finally boarded a hopefully more reliable Boeing 787 to Osaka mid-afternoon. I say hopefully, because this one was only two hours

Chaotic

While emptying my head into the shiny new bullet journal a few minutes ago, it struck me that I haven't written in the blog today - and I really should, because I would scarcely believe the chaos and mayhem currently surrounding me in years to come unless I

In Limbo

I'm not sure I've really written about something rather siesmic that's going on in our family at the moment. I'm about to become a grandfather. My youngest daughter is very, very pregnant. We're talking days or hours away from "

Frozen Pipes and Bullet Journals

The universe sometimes exhibits a wonderful sense of humor. The night before last the temperature dropped to well below zero (celcius, for my American friends). Well below freezing point. So of course the central heating in our house chose to stop working. By mid-morning a heating engineer had paid us

The Grindstone

I returned to work today - or rather, I turned through ninety degrees within the junk-room, plugged my work laptop back in, and grimaced while clicking the Outlook and Teams icons. Only they didn't work. At some point over Christmas, my digital overlords had decided I was no

Recovery

After falling asleep at about 11pm last night I woke at 3am and discovered my other half had been to bed at some point, and then gone downstairs. I also figured out I was partially deaf, and had perhaps the driest mouth in the known universe. Snoring. I must have

The Lurgy

After making it all the way through Christmas and New Year without catching any of the various coughs and colds that were doing the rounds, I suddenly sneezed this afternoon. I sneezed, and then my nose completely blocked. I thought "oh here we go". It's amusing

Breakfast, Bookshops, and Stranger Things

After clearing the decks at chore-city this morning I walked (very slowly) into town with my middle daughter. She's on crutches at the moment - recovering from anterior cruciate ligament surgery - a repair on an injury sustained in a rugby match about 18 months ago. It'

Reconnecting

Another January 1st has rolled around, and with it, that familiar hum of "new year, new me." This is where many people launch into grand declarations about resolutions, goals, and all the exciting things they are going to do this year. Not me. This year feels... different.

Far from the madding crowd

As the final hours of 2025 ebbed away, I sat on the sofa with a laptop, quietly lifting 22 years worth of blog posts into the air - to land them far from the madding crowd. After a rather horrendous run through the end of the year - more of

Boxing Day

After falling off the internet in recent days, I reached out to a few friends around the world this morning - wishing them a happy “Boxing Day”, and none of them outside the UK had a clue what I was referring to. In the UK, the day after Christmas Day

Christmas Day

Somehow we’ve made it through Christmas in one piece. We all congregated in the lounge by mid-morning. There had been strict instructions to cap the budget at a sensible amount per person this year - because we all work now (well… all except our youngest daughter, who is heavily

Work, chores and strictly

It’s been a few days again. A few days since I last emptied my head into the keyboard. I’m not sure where the last week went, to be honest. Work, chores, and errands rapidly conspire if you let them - and I tend to let them. I’m

On the outside, looking in

I went to my other half’s work Christmas party as her “plus one” last night. It was interesting - being the person on the outside, looking in on the work friendships and relationships - not having to “be present”, or “show up”. I learned so much about a room

In search of my lost tribe

I don’t recognise the internet any more.

A Moveable Feast

It occurred to me this morning that I’m becoming invisible. As wave after wave of new generations enter the scene from stage left, I’m increasingly the fool on the hill - recounting past adventures, and rolling my eyes at the surrounding cacophony. It got me thinking - about

Unnecessarily Difficult

A few months ago I switched from Android to iPhone. In the process of doing so, somebody somewhere sold my phone number to a marketing moron, and before I knew it, I was receiving multiple calls per day from random numbers. Perhaps the most annoying were from a pre-teen telling

The Glyptotek and Tivoli Gardens

Yesterday morning we set out bright and early for the “Glyptotek” - a vanity project built by Carl Jacobsen - the son of the founder of the Carlsberg breweries - to house his art collection. While wandering around the museum I found myself wondering if art is a really good

Oats, Harbours, Mermaids and Glogg

Today was very much a day of new things. A breakfast of overnight oats, a pilgrimage of sorts, a marching military band, a mermaid, an open sandwich and a glass of glogg. After filling ourselves with quite wonderful oats first thing we wrapped up against the cold and set out

Copenhagen

After a 5am alarm call, a taxi at 6am, and breakfast at Heathrow airport, we finally took off a little before 9am, and set off towards Copenhagen, Denmark. We thought we were being clever travelling light - only bringing carry-on bags with us- so you can imagine our reaction at

It wasn't always this way

You know the one where you’ve been promising to yourself to write something for days, but then this interesting thing appears in your peripheral vision, or that total and under disaster unfolds directly in front of you, or an entire universe of washing falls from the sky on your

Fifteen Minutes

I started writing this blog post fifteen minutes before the end of my lunch break at work - after losing the rest of my lunch break washing clothes, clearing the kitchen up, and so on. After writing a few words my work computer sang forth a message notification, and like

An Early Night

After an early night last night, I have been up since 3:45 this morning. I got up to watch the Grand Prix in Las Vegas - which turned out to be not worth watching at all. Oh well. Several hours have now passed. It’s still ridiculously early. I’

The Importance of Being Earnest

We made our way into London yesterday evening to watch Stephen Fry starring as Lady Bracknell in “The Importance of Being Earnest”. It didn’t quite work out as planned, but I’ll get to that. The Elizabeth line delivered us into the depths of the city during the late

Drinking the Kool Aid

I left Cornwall mid-morning yesterday after a long promised visit to my parents. The journey home felt oddly detached - with no mobile signal and no data connection on the train for several hours. The “free wifi” on the train was marginally funnier than my trains to and from Cornwall