'Midlifin' it,' with Anniki Sommerville

Mansplaining - it still goes on a lot you know

I am in the park. It’s a dusty, Sunday. There are blobs of white blossom flying around and they keep getting trapped in my throat so I cough and can’t stop coughing. The sun is hot and I have forgotten to bring suncream. It’s really boring.

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Swans and posh ladies who lunch

I’ve just finished watching ‘Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,’ (it’s on Disney and is brilliant). In it we see the high society of New York in the fifties and sixties, a particular group of well manicured ladies who are married to very wealthy and powerful men and the series documents their relationship with the writer Truman Capote. It’s brilliant in many ways as it perfectly brings to life the boredom many of these privileged women experience.

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Once you stop crying, you start laughing

I am not using the word ‘redundancy’ anymore because it sucks. It doesn’t explain the experience accurately. In a company you are not ‘redundant’ but your role is ‘redundant’. It can take time to realise that you had an internal sigh of relief when you heard the news. After you’d eaten a bag of greasy chips, wrapped in damp paper, on a bench like a feral animal, and thought about how you’d eventually kill the people who delivered the news.

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No shags please we're too tired

I used to think it was only me who was never/rarely having sex. I have added in the word ‘rarely’ as I’m worried about coming out and saying the word NEVER. I guess it depends how you define ‘rarely’. If it’s once a year then that feels like frequent

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10 year olds who are teenagers already

I know that it might be rich that I talk about social media having a detrimental impact on mental health (as someone who has been on Instagram for over 10 years now). However now the evidence is mounting up (I’m not going to cite all the studies but you’ve probably heard about them). It’s not just social media however. It’s also smartphones in general. …

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Women bosses: not always a positive story

On the weekend I was doing a 10K run. I’d been training for for many months and am not going to get all self deprecating about it because I worked hard to be able to do it and not collapse half way round. I’ve written before about how helpful running is for me. How it sorts my head out first thing even if it’s just for twenty minutes in the morning. I went with two friends and on the way there we were talking about work as this friend was about to start a new job and the subject of women bosses came up.

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A challenging week does not mean a challenging life

This week my older daughter broke her arm. It was completely out of the blue and happened at a football match. She’s okay (thank goodness), and is currently at a Brownie camp somewhere on the outskirts of west London. The week had already felt full on with prep for this Brownie camp. There were 10+ different forms to fill in beforehand (

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Coffee is for friends and nothing more

Routine is important. Without it we can feel aimless. Like we haven’t got a purpose. If you’re going through a period of adjustment and worry then that’s when you need to double down on routine (or this is what works for me).

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Janine: An ode to a young mother

(This post may be triggering to anyone who has been impacted by suicide or has or is struggling with post partum depression. If you ARE struggling at the moment please reach out to your GP, family/friends right away. There is always support there even if it feels as if there isn’t).

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Scarcity mindset and Marian Keyes

Recently I’ve found myself on a bit of a journey. The first couple of weeks of being freelance were full of terror and waking up first thing with my heart in my mouth. As the main earner there isn’t much time to ‘build up a runway’ or ‘be authentic’ or ‘discover your mission.’ You are basically out there, like an old-school newspaper sales person shouting ‘READ ALL ABOUT IT!’ with your PDF CV attached to every email you send.

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