Trapdoor

Hi, This week be a post of two halves. If you can make it a three halves of one, the current UK administration have a job for you in budgeting 😋 Thank you, I’m here all week! Try the vegetarian option! 😉 Introspection Now if you don’t want to wade through this next chunk of navel gazing, feel free to skip to the end and there’s the usual What Lynn Did Next at Chams stuff. 🙂 I have had another period of time off work. Nothing serious – as in a major physical condition or an ‘episode’ around mental health – thankfully, but a seasonal cold that flattened me. We’ll come back to this in a mo. Before the above, […]

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Wax on, wax off

Hi, Shall we have a round of good news? Just for a change of thoughtful introspection, worry, or talk of coping. 🙂 Wish List With the summer holidays coming to a close and a change from short to long trousers, I dared to dream of being rid of the accursed leg fluff. Usually, I would opt for the epilator and wince my way through the process. But with another decade on the clock not too far away, I felt now was the time for something off the wish list. I mean, I’ve heard it said that you should aim for experiences and memories, rather than possessions. After a quick look online, I found a waxing specialist in a nearby village […]

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Lessons Learned: Part XIII – Mindsets and Maps

Hi, Not so long ago, I was talking with a (trans) friend about their worries about their gender and where it might be taking them. As with any conversation about emotions and where are experiencing difficulties, often – or may it’s just me :-)- we use metaphors. Firstly, I need to say that any metaphor you use, is one that works for you. This doesn’t make it wrong if you use it and I don’t. Indeed, it may be that we need to respect a phrase or story someone uses, rather than dump our own interpretation on top. The risk, otherwise, is that we break the flow of the other person’s story or sharing, as we draw them into explaining. […]

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Toxic

Hi, I’ve got a lot running around in my head at the moment. Thoughts jump in and out of focus, so I’m doing what I usually do in this situation: just write…. Or more accurately, when I can’t grab what I need to say, I tailspin into going off topic and I delete things. 🙄 I think this is attempt number four… The bad I… I don’t want to write about the bad things: the loss of womens’ rights in the US; the UK MP’s private letter sent to schools in South Yorkshire about a ‘push back’ to trans teens; and the creeping of fascism of our politics, etc. I am aghast that I’m writing that last line without irony, […]

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Against the storm

Hi, Okay, Lynn: put your metaphorical big girl pants on and let’s give this a go. I’ve heard it said that a way to break through writer’s block is to just write. Hammer at the keys and just go. I guess staring at the page doesn’t move things along. At the moment, I feel like a person in a small row boat, bobbing slowly along in a foggy sea. Occasionally, cyclopean hulks will drift by, their shadowy wake dwarfing the light and any sense of safety. The pandemic, the war, the campaign of hate, etc. I would say that feels like three out of four on the horseperson Pokémon apocalypse special. If you catch ’em all, you get a free […]

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2021: a look back

Hi, Like the year before, 2021 seems to have been an odd fellow. We seemed to have a brush of normality, and yet, COVID never seemed far away. The long shadow of Xmas Before and the long winter that followed. As a family, we’ve kept up with mask wearing in shops and in public places. Yes, I’ve not been as rigorous at Chams, but – and let’s skip any jokes about cheese & wine it’s-not-a-party umm ‘events’, sorry business meetings – with there being a small number of us, and by keeping social distances, we have remained okay. The good news this year is that while the Ever Lovely Mrs J’s health took a bit of a dip, her changes […]

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