They say you should never go back. Well, whoever ‘they’ are, I’ve got news for them. 23 years after Mr Marr and I found an idyllic little campsite on the west coast of Brittany, we have returned. And while everything is different, it’s all exactly the same. It is perfectly imperfect. 23 years ago, there… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Parenting
In the Army: Taking biomed to the front line
Once again, I find myself in a quandary. I am immensely proud and vicariously excited, yet a little concerned and fearful. Daughter#2, having completed her third year of a degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Glasgow and been accepted into the Masters Course, has also been approached by the army. As far as… Read more »
That’s one (nearly) off the payroll.
Parenting is full of milestones – first tooth, first steps, first day at nursery, then first day at school. There are first sports days and hockey and football matches, first nativity plays and first school trips… and then before you know it, you start clocking up ‘lasts’ too – the last day at primary school,… Read more »
Overheard on the train.
I’m not one for eavesdropping but sometimes if just can’t be helped. On a train from the central belt back north this week – it couldn’t be helped, as much as I’d have loved to have remained oblivious to what was going on. Picture the scene – and if you’ve travelled by Scotrail in the… Read more »
An empty nest isn’t necessarily a sad one!
I officially have an empty nest, and not for the first time. With my daughters now in third and fourth year at Glasgow University, and Daughter No 1 having worked abroad before going to university, this is the fifth time I’ve done ‘the trip’. Believe me, it gets easier every time. It’s less a time… Read more »
I’m with John Finnie, but I did smack my children.
As the debate about smacking has been aired in Holyrood, in the press and on the radio, I have been feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Because although I fully support Highland MSP John Finnie’s Member’s Bill to outlaw the physical punishment of children, and am proud that Scotland will be the first part of the UK to… Read more »
Kids leaving home? The First Cut is the Deepest.
It’s that time of year again. As university terms start across the country, parents and their almost-adult off-spring will be stuffing bedding, clothes, books, laptops and family packs of pasta into the back of estate cars, and spreading out across the country to off-load precious cargo, maybe not to be seen again till Christmas. By… Read more »
Could you be a Home-Start volunteer?
Home-Start need volunteers to give families a helping hand Our girls have left home now, both living in Glasgow, both presumably getting up to all sorts of shenanigans that I’d really rather not know about. But our parenting journey wasn’t always straightforward, and it doesn’t take much for me to remember how tough it occasionally… Read more »
We failed as parents, but Mrs Taylor has won at Twitter
Advice to new parents: the first and most important lesson that you need to learn is that you will never win, so pick your battles carefully. And the second lesson is that no matter what you do for your kids, it’s what you don’t do that they’ll chastise you for in the future. And if… Read more »
Surprising lessons from a movie classic
There’s more to Dead Poets Society than ‘Carpe Diem’ We lit the fire on Sunday afternoon, slammed a joint of beef in the oven for dinner, and settled down to watch a DVD. The film was an oldie – the 1997 Robin Williams film Dead Poets Society. You’ll have seen it; it’s set in a… Read more »