Grief, ED recovery, Mental Health and all the lovely things that give my Sisyphean rock meaning
Six years ago, I never imagined two wild wood pigeons would become my best friends. Meet Squigeon and Goose, two wonderfully different birds who completely changed how I see pigeons. From food preferences to funny personalities, they've taught me that wildlife is far more individual than we often realise.
Fatigue might have dominated my week, but it wasn't the whole story. There was an entitled Sharon in Lidl, an unforgettable gift from my son, a wish made on a shooting star, and a reminder that even during the hardest weeks, life still manages to surprise me in the smallest ways.
This is one of the hardest posts I've ever written. It's about my son, the Supreme Court ruling, and why, as a cis woman, I don't feel more protected by it. Most of all, it's about the human cost of turning people's lives into political debate.
After a couple of stressful weeks, I decided to stop and remember the good things instead. Somehow that list ended up including finally getting my medication, a surprise Starbucks bear, seeing the trees again, becoming weirdly obsessed with washing powder, breathtaking sunrises, and, of course... even more pigeons.
I thought I was writing about scaffolding. It turns out I was writing about friendship. This is the story of Squigeon, Goose, a year without pigeons, and why the day they came back brought more than just the sunlight back into my life.
A simple trip to collect my medication somehow turned into a desert expedition, a nostalgic taxi ride to 2010, a battle with Boots, a cluster headache, an invasion of bush crickets and, somehow, two jars of reduced SunPat peanut butter. Honestly, the universe just wasn’t on my side that day.
Turns out impulsively destroying furniture was an excellent distraction. Unfortunately, once the chaos stopped, my brain made up for lost time. Heatwaves, recovery, routine, British summer tapas and one very confused Jellycat croissant all somehow ended up in the same blog post.
After falling in love with a bedroom I’d designed in House Flipper, my son wanted the bed from it. What followed was a day of heavy lifting, confusing instructions, cardboard battles, and the realisation that virtual DIY is considerably easier than the real thing.
On Tuesday, all I had to do was go to the dentist. Instead, I got caught in a torrential downpour, emergency-shopped for a jacket, bought suspiciously specific DIY tools, declared war on a sofa, accidentally created a rage room, cleaned up a communal bin room disaster, and somehow still thought that was normal.
When Marks & Spencer announced it was closing, I was surprised by how upset I felt. This isn’t really a story about a supermarket. It’s a story about friendship, Christmas sandwich competitions, Yorkshire puddings, grief, and how sometimes we leave pieces of the people we love in unexpected places.
