My mother has always been a fan of words. On regular occasions throughout my life she has furnished me with little titbits of etymology that have stuck in my brain. When I was a child, she had a particular penchant for pointing out words of Indian origin (pyjama, gymkhana, bungalow), Read more
In the Easter holidays, something magical happened. Something so out of the Seymour norm’ that we surprised even ourselves as we left for a family holiday – all six of us – to the Costa Blanca – and Benidorm, to be exact. I can hear you asking – why Bendorm? Read more
The new year has begun, as we knew it would, and once again I am filled with a desire to be better. A desire, yes. But an action plan on how to achieve this enhanced me – no. There are many things I’d like to change in order to succeed Read more
Somewhere in my house is a notebook – one of many- in which I have diarised significant events in my life. Some notebooks are full of scribbled teenage angst, others are laden with self-doubt, offloaded confessions and repeated resolutions. But some of the best were written many years ago, when Read more
In spite of always trying to be aware of the world around me, and to keep up with developments, especially the kind of developments that may be relevant to school-aged children, I must admit that I have now drawn a blank. Not only have I drawn a blank, but I Read more
It transpires that I can’t actually stop writing about The Four Little Seymours, after all. There have been complaints. And so, in the spirit of keeping everyone happy, I have come up with a different plan… The other page I started, I shall abandon. I may import the stories I Read more
Eight years ago today, a standard sized pack of Original Pringles cost a mere 75p. This is no guess, nor is it an estimate. It isn’t a rose-tinted, warped idealist recollection, either. It is a FACT. I know this because Facebook thrust me a photo memory this morning, showing a Read more
The Four Little Seymours are not bad kids. OK, they have their faults, like we all do. A lot of the faults are tech-related, or revision-related – you, know, the usual kind of stuff. Luckily, we are yet to experience the horrors of narcotics, or the “Can my boyfriend stay Read more
January 2024! By gosh, that feels very futuristic. Like a movie set in space, or a story by George Orwell. But no. Here we are, two thousand and twenty four years after the birth of Little Baby Jesus, or thereabouts, and we humans are still f@cking up our planet and Read more
Yesterday, my brother presented me with a copy of Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive. In handing it over, he gave a brief description of its general theme (the author suffered with his mental health) and then caveat-ed his verbal blurb with a dismissal: “But I’m not saying that you Read more