Middle-aged, Free and Single

A Little Bag of Sweets

Yesterday was a Difficult day. And when a colleague arrived with bags of sweeties for the sweetie stash, there was only one thing for it. I took a small bag of Haribo Tangfastics – and scoffed the lot. I needed it. About three weeks ago, I decided to cut sugar out of my diet. First…

The Price of Fish – the women’s story

Today is the 121st anniversary of the loss of the fishing vessel Bernicia. She’d sailed from Cellardyke on the east coast of Scotland, and was lost in storms in the North Sea on or around 12th February 1900. On board were 10 men, one of whom was my Great Grandfather Alexander Murray. Last year I…

Views, Visitors, and Mugs of Tea

I’ve written 320 blog posts. I aim to post every other day or thereabouts. This post is number 321. Yesterday, someone sat and read pretty much every single one of them. As part of the blog set-up, I get stats. WordPress tells me the number of people who visit the site each day, the number…

Clinging on to the Wagon

I decided to stop having sugar in my tea and coffee. I also decided to stop eating the sweeties at work and cut out the bikkies. This is because I have osteoarthritis is my knuckles and I googled things to do to improve matters. There’s no cure, and things will get worse over time, but…

No More Sugar – two weeks on

Two weeks ago I decided to give up sugar. I have osteoarthritis in my finger joints, and when I googled ‘things to do’, avoiding sugar was on the list, alongside losing weight and avoiding refined carbs. I don’t need to lose weight, and I already avoid refined carbs, so it was obvious what I had…

Tech is a Four Letter Word

Right now, this minute, I’m sick and tired of tech. Yes, I know I was all for it a couple of posts ago. But not tonight. I’m tired of it not working the way it’s supposed to work. I’m tired of it not doing the things it’s supposed to do. I’m tired of it going…

Dry January – Claire’s Story

This is a Guest Blog from my friend Claire, who invited me to join her online support group for Dry January, even though I didn’t know any of them apart from her and even though I didn’t do Dry January myself. I’ve been tracking their progress – you can read about the ups and downs,…

Dry January – Nearly There

Only three more days to go, for the people who decided that what they wanted to do most of all, in the middle of a global pandemic (in the middle of winter, and just as Brexit started to hit home), was to stop drinking. Four weeks of abstaining from intoxicating liquor. Four weeks of finding…

Up Helly Aa

Back in 1983, my husband was offered a new job. He’d been in the Merchant Navy – but we wanted to come ashore, so he applied for a job with HM Coastguard. He was successful, and his first posting was to Lerwick. We had no real idea where Lerwick was. I think I vaguely thought…

Old Dog. New Tricks.

Isn’t technology wonderful! A pain in the arse sometimes, but basically wonderful. The trouble is, it changes so rapidly. No sooner have we got our heads around one way of doing something than bang – another bit of tech comes along and we’re all having to re-learn. My first computer (an Amstrad 1640) was state…

No More Sugar

I have osteoarthritis in the top joints of my fingers. The worst affected are my little fingers, but I get a bit of pain in most of them, apart from my thumbs. My hands look like I remember my Grandma’s hands looking. The joints of my little fingers are quite swollen. I don’t have much…