On Monday I made the gravely ill-advised decision to play football. It was the now-annual resurrection of a game we started playing every Saturday fifteen years ago, a group of dads with our kids and their friends, then aged five. Over the years, the game embraced a changing cast of boys, girls and parents, some …
My desk supports a whole, incoherent museum of treasures that are important to me. There are model cars from my boyhood; my Dad’s pen; sundry rocks; a leather tray from Wyoming. None of it ostensibly makes sense but all of it means something. Now, in September, my sister-in-law, Mandy and her grownup children, Adam and …
It hasn’t been the greatest week at work. Not that the work itself has been bad; some of it has been a joy. But you know how it is from time to time; and I’ve been finding it hard to know exactly how to be. In private it’s easy: I can curse and let off …
It used to be the case that our house was full of unaccountable noise. In the night, there were bangings and crashings. Doors opening and closing with tremendous force. Whispering voices in the small hours, then howls and sudden bursts of cackling laughter. It was like living in a horror movie and it was, frankly, …
The future troubles me. I worry about all sorts of stuff. These are not global concerns. I’m good with the great shifts of human and planetary history. No. With me, it’s the little things. When I was waiting for my children to be born, I fretted over what we would call them, about whether they’d …
The Census for England and Wales on Sunday was the first to record that my children are now all technically adults. This was the third time they’ve appeared in the census (and my sixth), each one a momentary snapshot of our individual and collective lives: who we are, what we are, where we are, where …
I woke up tired this morning. On Friday, I went to see my Dad in hospital, where he’s stuck with a bout of pneumonia, and then had supper with my Mum. On Saturday I saw some very old friends, sat around, sang, laughed a lot and went busking. My children showed up as if by …
My house is full of boys and I have nowhere to go. There are only three of them, but they are an uncontainable, terrifyingly extensive physical presence. My stepsons, Sam and Linus are 6’2” and 6’4”. My boy Silas, all wiry climber’s limbs and freakishly long fingers, is no bigger than me, but no less …
Good morning, Paddy, and a happy Boxing Day to you all. I’m delighted to meet you although, to be honest, the circumstances could be better. I’d really rather be in bed right now and yet, somehow, here I am, like Good King Wenceslaus, looking out on the Feast of Stephen. The trouble with the day …
I went camping this summer, in Dorset with my eldest, Miriam and my youngest, Silas. We pitched camp in our usual busy field a couple of miles outside Swanage, but then on our way to town for fish and chips, we passed a beautiful, empty, wide-open site, and our heads were turned. So back we …