I’m just a conduit for static. I seem to accumulate it everywhere I go. And no, I’m not dragging my feet across the floor like some kind of tragic Quasimodo figure (although I am into humps and enjoy ringing bells). Almost every time I sit down at my home computer and reach out to turn it on I get a zap. Then the cursor on my computer will often go ( Read more... )

There are times when I feel I’m channelling my inner sophisticated and professional adult with laudable success. Last night’s meeting was all about data, something I loathe. But the data was looking at the school’s senior classes and their results on the all important end-of-year exam. My class’ results were SPECTACULAR. Above the state average in ( Read more... )

One of the great tragedies of my life is that I can’t eat cooked onions. I love the smell of them as they are frying in a pan. The way they sizzle with a sizeable dollop of butter, the whole carmelisation process that turns raw onions into something spectacular and makes them such an olfactory delight. I just can’t eat them. Well, I can… and I have ( Read more... )

I don’t take leftovers to work for lunch, no matter how delicious and salivatary-inducing they are. I want to, but I don’t. I can’t. I won’t. It’s a hard and fast rule I’ve never broken and I never ever will.  And it all stems from the first time I saw a communal work fridge and realised that human beings are just really truly disgusting. Milk ( Read more... )

There are the clothes I wear to face the world at work and at play, and then there are the clothes I wear when I’m at home. Home clothes don’t have to be stylish or appropriate or even fit right. They just have to be comfy. I’ve gathered a mish-mash of home wearing bits and pieces over the years - most are dorky and well loved, some have holes or ( Read more... )

I first read the Anne of Green Gables books when I was around the age of the little redheaded orphan at the start of the series. I loved them. Periodically, I’d go back to them over the years for another reading and they always held up - they still made me laugh and my heart still went out to Anne in her various predicaments. There were also the ( Read more... )

I’d just checked into my hotel and had clambered into the elevator. The humidity of the city had hit me hard and I was already feeling slightly wilted and a little bit soggy. That’s when the lift dinged, signally a stop at the second floor. The doors opened and eight young and beautiful people squeezed into the already populated carriage. They were ( Read more... )

The problem with being hopelessly incompetent in the kitchen is that you get blamed when kitchen things go wrong… and it’s not ALWAYS your fault. Take for instance this weekend, where I made myself a lovely mushroom pizza and cooked it in the oven. The pizza itself turned out to be delicious, if a little watery (I was pleased that I’d navigated the ( Read more... )

The kitchen bench top of my childhood home protruded out beyond the actual counter and into the walkway space between the kitchen and dining area. It was curved and sleek, cleverly stealing additional surface space for cooking prep. The only problem was that I always ran right into it. There must have been a time, as a toddler, when I could ( Read more... )

Having an over-active imagination is one of the keenest joys a person could ever experience, short of using all your letters to make a triple word score in Scrabble or picking off crusty scabs. The only problem is that sometimes, just every now and then, it can backfire on you. I woke up at 3am last night experiencing the kind of dread that only an ( Read more... )