I know, I know, it looks like all I do is swan around Ubud eating and having massages… but like your Facebook feeds from friends, what you see is a curated version of my life… the reality is I’m awake at 4.30/5am most mornings and that I am working pretty much non-stop until Alula gets …
I didn’t feel much in the run up to leaving. I think I was in denial. It was easier to just keep moving forward and not think about what we were leaving behind, but then in the last minutes I wobbled. Watching Alula say goodbye to her best friend was one of the most heart-breaking …
‘It’s time to leave Bali mummy,’ Alula declares as we walk out of Green School gates for the last time ever. She doesn’t mean literally. We’re not going for another three days but in her infinite wisdom Alula’s hit the nail on the head. It is time to leave. Though the feeling is vague and …
Alula and I decided that to mark the end of days (ahem) we would spend an entire day in Ubud doing everything we loved most. As it turned out that mainly involved eating. Before we left the house we wrote a bucket list of the best things to do in Ubud. And yes, that does …
Dear Alula, Yesterday you cried. You were inconsolable. You want to leave now, you sobbed. You don’t want to make friends in England, you said, because you’ll just end up leaving them, so what’s the point? You’re really bad at math, you cried. And you call braids braids, not plaits. Who calls them plaits anyway? …
I never thought I’d have occasion to say that line but now I can I’m shouting it from the rooftops. Yesterday in WHSmith I made it to #4 in the bestseller list and found myself beneath my teenage crush Dermot O’Leary and on top of Bear Grylls. Then today I find myself in Hello! magazine …
I’m busy ordering feather pillows and silk thermals online for our return to England. Let’s put that into perspective. We don’t yet have a house to live in. I think my feather pillows might be a little premature unless I plan to use them to make the pavement more comfy. I have a feeling psychologists …
“I’m planning on being a nicer person when I’m back in England.” ‘You are a nice person already,’ I tell Alula. ‘I think I could be nicer. I’m already practicing,” Alula informs me. I feel humbled into silence by my eight-year old daughter’s level of emotional intelligence and self-awareness. Feeling I need to up my …
It’s ten pm. The lights are off. I’m sitting on the bed watching Mad Men. Beside me Alula splays in sleep, indifferent to the charms of Donald Draper. All of a sudden the soft sound of Jenga blocks tumbling over startles me. I hit the pause button on my laptop. It was probably a mouse, …
I’m sitting in my swingy chair on the balcony wearing a light cotton slip, listening to the soothing afternoon chirrup of the crickets, looking out over the sweltering blue sky and sipping an iced coffee. This is my world right now…. And then someone I know sends me this (along with a smiling faced emoticon, for …
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