Tag: books
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121: BURNT
The family are away this weekend… … and here’s a potent reminder of why (some) dads should never be left to look after themselves. In case you were wondering, this was a pizza. The laziest form of food to cook yourself. And I still managed to fuck it up. ‘Cowpat?’ asks a friend, when I…
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120: PARP
It’s the next day and I’ve just arrived at the open mike event – for local authors – at our nearest town’s literary festival. The time is 7.30pm… and the event appears to have started earlier than advertised on the ticket. When I walk into the room (which is in a chain hotel near the…
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119: CREATIVE DRINKS
I’m in a bar in our local town, having ‘creative drinks’ with a bunch of local arty types. To be honest, I didn’t realise there were many arty types in our local town, bar the handful who congregate in their favoured coffee shop… plus a few painters Lizzie knows. But there are a surprising number…
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118: RETURN OF THE JOURNAL
It’s the third day of the week I’ve booked off work… and I’m continuing to use the time in a pretty lazy manner. Sitting in cafés having coffees. Sitting a lot at home, tapping at my laptop – when I can be bothered to even do that. I’m about to have lunch in our kitchen…
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117: GRANDMA vs. CEDRIC – PART 2
Any of you who are long-term readers of Stop Telling Me I’m Brave might remember my description of the love-hate relationship between our dog Cedric and Lizzie’s mother A. (Or Grandma as she’s referred to in our household). OK, let’s be honest, despite the fact that Grandma sometimes feeds Cedric scraps of food at the…
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116: NAME-DROP-O-RAMA!!
I’m driving Annie to school, through the West Midlands countryside. My daughter, as is her wont, isn’t paying me the slightest bit of attention. Instead, she’s focused on her iPhone… updating a playlist on Spotify and playing the tastiest morsels from it on my car stereo. Annie’s musical tastes are eclectic and multi-era-spanning. She listens…
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115: BEE THING
I’m heading back to our home in the countryside, after two days working in London, and I’ve just been sent this picture from our back garden. Yikes! What the hell is this terrifying BEE THING*? Is it wrong for me to want to leap on a train, going back to Marylebone? Probably… May 2023 *After…
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114: ROT
It’s the second bank holiday weekend in 2023. Lizzie has gone down to Devon for a few days to hang out with a friend and paint seascapes. And I’m having a proper old lazy time, in the way I only can when Lizzie is out of the house and isn’t making me feel like I…
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113: FERAL CAT
So, back in 2022, we decided to get another (i.e. second) cat. I’ve already talked about Rosie in the pages of this blog… our beloved calico mog who died of cancer in January 2023. Well in 2022, before Rosie died, we thought she might like a little feline friend… so we got ourselves (and Rosie)…
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112: BED RAIL
Lizzie and I are changing the sheets on our bed. That hardly sounds newsworthy in itself… except these days we don’t change the sheets as often as we used to (when Lizzie was ill) and I’m going to have to come clean (sorry for the pun)… they’re not exactly looking pristinely white. Maybe I’ve been…
P. D. Clifton 