Midwife, Mother, Me

Too many books, not enough time…

8th Apr 2025

What book could you read over and over again? I have a project that will forever remain on my to-do list. There’s just no way I’ll ever have time. The priority level will never increase from a nice-to-achieve to a really-needs-to-be-done. Instead it will always be classified as unnecessary-perfection-because-who’s-got-time. So the problem is two-fold: I…
Domesticated wolves, miniature tigers, and cute short-tailed rodents…

6th Apr 2025

What animals make the best/worst pets? Recently, an expecting couple asked me what they should do about the dog once their baby was born… Loyal reader, I’m rarely without words but I was, temporarily, at a loss! The only thing I could think of was: if you have to ask, then get rid of the…
Micro Memory

2nd Apr 2025

You’d think that with the invention of writing eons ago, we’d have increased our intergenerational memory span. And figured out how to live in peace and prosperity. Apparently that’s not working out so well for us. Like so many world changing ideas (see also the printing press and the Internet), writing has been used both…
Swimming pool rage

9th Mar 2025

Middle Child is learning to drive. Don’t tell him (he doesn’t always read this, he might never know!) but he’s actually quite good. Now if he’d just resit his theory (taken rather brazenly last September, over-confident but woefully underprepared), take a couple more lessons and book a test, he’d probably get himself a license just…
Optimism take 2

10th Feb 2025

As of the 20th Jan, my optimism reserves have taken a bit of a hit. I’ve tried to counter this by not listening to the news. It’s not been easy, not gonna lie. Being the middle class, middle aged midwife that I am, I’m normally an avid BBC Radio 4 listener. I wake up to…
I’m a bit late commenting but…

22nd Jan 2025

As a middle class midwife of a certain age, I was aggrieved by that late-middle-aged-pale-male’s unwise comment. I just Googled him, and look, he’s a (probably) working class Saaarf London boy who must have worked pretty hard to get where he is. I’ll let him have that. But. 13 individual complaints. All for sexual harassment?…
Mythical Mother Magic

12th Jan 2025

Middle Child was complaining the other day, because as far as he could tell, there was no food in the house and he was RAVENOUS… I was surprised (not that he was complaining, that’s standard!) but because I knew there was in fact enough food to make at least 2 family dinners. This got me…
The Unofficial, Unapproved, Unpublishable Minutes of a Team Meeting with The Big Boss

31st Dec 2024

Picture the scene. A pride of seasoned, hard working midwives. A team meeting. With the big boss, the Head of Midwifery. A chance to talk openly about the issues which affect us. Naturally we have a lot to say. Seriously, she really shouldn’t get us started… We’re not exactly holding our breath though. While we…
Dear Google Maps,

14th Dec 2024

I’m writing to you because I’m your biggest fan. I’m literally lost without you! We go back a long way, you and me: I loved your previous iterations too. I first knew you as TomTom when you were a bulky and expensive piece of hardware, not even terribly accurate. I was a young, woefully- dreadful-at-map-reading…
Labels 🏷

1st Dec 2024

Growing up, I never really felt like I fit in. Luckily there was a bunch of us misfits, and we were our own clique. I honestly wasn’t bothered. I could see others desperately trying to be cool, and it looked like hard work for low reward and no guarantees. It seemed obvious to me that…