Our older child has now been at university for six weeks and all is apparently well.  He went with his instinct for his first choice - rather than settling for the place that was supposedly higher up on the league tables. It has meant that apart from the physical comforts of a well-resourced campus, he has ‘found his people’ - which is exactly the kind of higher education experience we all want for our kids.  None of us are complacent - but it’s good to know that at least the

A few years ago when my children were in reception and year one at primary school respectively, a new head was being interviewed for the...

I have tried not to be too overtly political on these posts.  Not because politics isn’t important - it is profoundly so - but because I...

Dear Smartphone Hi-tech People I’m writing to you with a request - not because I am a total Luddite, a fantasist or some dreamy backward...

A frustration with writing about music is that it is constantly going to slip through your fingers.  It’s a bit like explaining smell or...

Just under a year ago, I wrote about how my resolution for the new year was to quieten the mind.  I can’t pretend to have all the answers...

My Dad died a few years ago, and although he didn’t get everything about parenting right, there were the odd things that he said (and...

I went to an awards ceremony recently and it struck me that everyone who I had seen in the media was older, fatter and shorter in real...

A thought we like to flatter ourselves with is that we are individually different and interesting. Our ponderings are original and...

There is thankfully a good deal of consensus these days that New Year resolutions are at best well intentioned, and at worst a load of...