Happy New year, I’m not going to say “Did you have a good Christmas” because the answerer will always be “Yes thank you very much did you?” I’ve had the best Christmases and the worst Christmases, but my answerer is always the same on the bases that if it’s been the later this person doesn’t want to hear my drivel, the season is now behind me, and the magic ‘yes’ is the easy answer which allows us all to move…
I was asked this week to contribute to an article written by Actress Julie Peasgood about favourite toys you had as a child. While chatting I realised that imagination played a great part in our childhood entertainment ‘Let’s Pretend’ was the prefix to a whole host of games. Mine included playing ‘Police’ Mum’s mini was our Panda Car the dog was recruited, and we’d take turns playing the burglar complete with swag bag, comedy stripy t-shirt and mask. Then there…
I read a headline in a newspaper I love and hate in the same sentence. It asked the question ‘Is it possible to have a greener Christmas?’ well if being ‘Green’ is about using less energy and recycling we’re probably doing that already with little room for improvement, so is there anything else we can really do? Even during times of plenty, food waste has always appalled me. I’ve never been one to squander this vital resource and am the…
I was half listening to BBC Breakfast News this morning, this is something apparently, we all do according to research when it comes to breakfast television. When I presented GMTV with Eamonn Holmes we were constantly aware that our audience was transient because unlike other ‘destination to view’ programmes, breakfast TV fits around our morning routine which includes shower, choosing clothes, breakfast, making beds, getting others up. There’s no other time of the day where, generally speaking, as a nation…
I loved, loved, loved, opening last week’s copy of My Weekly and seeing The Mindfulness Advent Calender – what a gorgeous idea, whoever thought of it should go to the top of the Christmas class now. So, spurred on by this initiative I went rummaging for the little drawer calendar I thought was up there in the loft. After 30 mins of looking I remembered I’d given it to a charity shop last year because it was one of the…
Is this the year we finally put Christmas back in its box (pardon the pun) stop turning it into some unworkable, unreachable fantasy and actually enjoy it? Our Scandinavian brothers and sisters are far less influenced by the commercialised Christmas virus we caught many years ago from America and haven’t managed to shake off. Christmas to them is part Christian but part Pagan which gives them a deep reverence for nature and the earth thus using this time of the…
On Thursday I spoke to our Editor Stuart about possible topics for me to write to you about and he said, what we’re consistently hearing from My Weekly readers is their anxiety over loneliness. It’s partly and understandably left over from lockdown but also as we get older opening up our circle and making new friends seems so much harder. It took me a while to write this because I’ve spent my life fearful of loneliness whenever asked by…
I was thinking today, how good I am at polluting my head with all the things that are wrong with my life, the country, the world and not for one moment am I putting the same amount of effort into the long list of things that are good about my life, the country, the world. We live in a crazy society where we have been conditioned to believe, bad news sells. Newspapers peddle it all the time, even…
Hello, How are you feeling after the last few weeks of national mourning over the death of our dear, beautiful Queen Elizabeth II? I honestly feel drained, partly my own fault for following every cough and spit the BBC televised to its anxious viewers. Then through a collective consciousness, I caught the dreaded infectious grief bug and no doubt happily passed it on to others mainly via my Instagram account speaking to people I’ve never met, comparing feelings. Some were…