These are some of my favourite lines from the poetry of WB Yeats who was born in Sandymount in Dublin on 13th June 1865 and is buried at the foot of Ben Bulben mountains in Sligo, Ireland. Whether you are Irish or not, raise a glass of Bailey’s Irish Mist tonight in gratitude of…
Category: Lifestyle
Warning – A Favourite Poem by Jenny Joseph
Warning by Jenny Joseph “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me, And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m…
Feeling low? Some pertinent advice from 1820 and it’s all still relevant today
Photo from my London garden April 2017 Almost two hundred years ago in February 1820, the British writer Sydney Smith wrote to his friend Lady Georgiana Morpeth offering what he called ‘Advice Concerning Low Spirits’ at a time when she was deeply distressed. A great deal of the advice he offers his friend…
London’s Chelsea Flower Show
The Greatest Flower Show in the World For about the last ten years I have been an annual visitor to the Chelsea Flower Show in London – this feast for the soul from which I and countless others derive the greatest joy not just from the dazzling display of perfect flowers and plants but from…
Evidence of Good Parenting:
“The child has no desire to be famous.” Alain de Botton
Understanding Brexit and the Populist Revolution – the Post Mortem
Are you highly educated, value openness and autonomy, and are happy to up sticks and move wherever your career takes you either at home or abroad? or Are you rooted to home living within 20 miles of where you grew up, less well educated, content with familiarity? or neither of the above? If you fall…
Mothering not Smothering
“Mum, that’s not mothering, it’s smothering”, that’s what my nineteen year old son said to me recently. Without question I have been a protective mother but living in suburban London I would be deemed negligent if I wasn’t especially when they were young. It’s so easy to be critical of other people’s parenting methods but…
Piece of Wisdom to Pass on to Your Children
“The secret of success is to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm”. Winston Churchill He knew all about success and failure having served as Prime Minister twice from 1940-45 and from 1951-55 leading Britain to victory in the Second World War but losing the 1945 General Election to Clement Attlee….
