Category: Ageing
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Forgiveness And The Ability To Say Sorry
Ask any member of my family and they will confirm that one of my biggest faults is my lack of forgiveness and more pertinently my inability to say “sorry.” It is not something I can deny, and neither will I apologize for it – obviously. Perhaps my absence of empathy in this regard has something…
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My Kids Will Be Able To Say A Lot Of Things About Me, But Never That I Didn’t Love them.
A friend asked me the other day about how I felt about Mothers Day, and I knew that the question was loaded – you see, I haven’t had a mother for a long time. And for the first time, it struck me that I don’t view the celebration from the perspective of my own mother.…
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What To Watch Next? The Viewing Dilemma Faced By Every Middle-Aged Couple
As the final episode of series 3 of The Wire reached its conclusion last night (and if I’m honest, we were no clearer about what the fuck happened during its twelve episodes), the old man and I reached another crisis of epic proportions in our marriage. What to watch next? Because what to watch on…
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Stiffness In Middle Age
Sorry to mislead you with the clickbait of my title, but no, this isn’t a titillating article about the benefits of Viagra in middle age. It is, in fact, a piece on the more boring topic of stiff joints and aching muscles at this stage of our lives. Because it seems to me, that as one…
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Cooking For A Family Of Dietary Heathens
Anyone who is responsible for cooking the evening meal knows what a mindfuck it is. It takes a lot of preparation – you have to remember to defrost, to check you have all the ingredients and that there will be enough food to go around, and if you have kids like mine, one of the…
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Letting Go Of The Shit In Your Life
NC and her friends had a sisterhood meeting the other night. She and her tight band of millennial girlfriends, who have recently experienced a spate of more trials than tribulations in their journeys through young adulthood, decided they needed an intervention. After a rough few weeks of new jobs, new-people stresses, cockroach infestations, the cost…
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What Happened To The Fearlessness Of My Youth?
It is no secret that anxiety can be linked to menopause, and for some women, the condition can be so bad, it forces them to turn to anti-depressants to get through it. According to Medical News Today: ‘Hormone changes, life stresses, sleep problems, worries about body image, infertility, boring marriages and aging are all factors…
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Why Every Parent Needs To Watch Lady Bird
Described by Empire as ‘A coming-of-age story like no other, Lady Bird is smart, emotional, funny and completely original. Rarely has a directorial debut been so assured, so singular and so heartwarmingly affecting,’ the movie Lady Bird has been critically acclaimed worldwide, and as a sucker for any movie that offers the secret to parenting, it…
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Anxiety, Stupidity, And Why The Next Time I Leave The House Will Be In A Casket
After what feels like an interminable period of drought, Sydney has been hampered by the kind of rains we usually only see on Christmas Day, at birthday parties or weddings over the past few days. Unlike my British alter-ego, I have come to enjoy the rain here – a few precious days when I can’t…
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Your Fifties: The Make Or Break Age Where Bad Decisions And Bad Genes Can Catch Up
It is always a shock to hear about the death or illness of celebrities around our own age. While I don’t believe that their lives are more special than mine, it can be hard not to secretly suspect that their barbeque areas aren’t paved with gold. Which was why the passing of Emma Chambers at 53…
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My Husband Seems To Have Forgotten This Year That Valentine’s Day Is A Competition
I choose not to remind the old man about special events during the year, such as our anniversary, my birthday and Valentine’s Day because it makes our relationship so much more interesting. I know that many people frown upon the commerciality of Valentine’s Day, but personally, I have always lapped up the opportunity to receive the…
LOUISA SIMMONDS 