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Everything we have published
Recovered articles from Middle Aged Free and Single, preserving their original dates and perspectives.
339 stories · Page 12 of 29
Eyebrows
Have you been to the shops? I haven’t, yet – I’m going to let the excitement die down a little first. And besides, I don’t really like shopping anyway. But as soon as I’m able to, I’ll be having my hair cut and my eyebrows re-shaped. If I…
Three Hundred Years a Slave
I’ve been wanting to write something about the riots since they started. But sitting here cocooned in my white privilege I don’t have the right to say anything. So instead I’m trying to imagine what life would be like now if those first…
Supernumerary in South Africa
Another in my occasional series about living on a ship – my first husband was in the Merchant Navy and I did four six-month trips with him during the first three years we were married. Last you heard from me, we were heading out across the…
What Have You Done Today?
As we begin, possibly, to move out of lockdown and back into the world, it’s time to take stock I think. There we were, tiddling along – and suddenly we could only go out for essential purposes. Which I think forced us all to think about…
What is Normal Anyway?
When did I last hug someone? When did I last shake hands with someone? When did I last even bump into someone accidentally? When did I last go to a pub with friends? Or out for a meal? When did I last have someone round for a coffee? Or…
How Would You Like Your Trolley Sir?
I was going to have a rant today about customers. The customers who think they know best (‘I don’t need a trolley…’) The customers who look surprised/offended/bemused when they get to the till and try to pay with cash. At this point they…
Just Lovely
I was off work last week. Let’s call it annual leave – ‘holiday’ conjures up too many memories of flights to foreign places and things that might have been. Anyway. This was the week that I should have taken just after Easter, but due to…
No Words
No Mow May – not
I hadn’t cut my grass for a month. Some of you may be aware of No Mow May – the idea is that you don’t cut your grass for the whole of May, thus allowing flowers to blossom and to provide nectar for the bees and any other passing insects…
Seven years on
I’ve been fairly nomadic throughout my life – shortest period in a house was six weeks, longest was 12 years. It’s exactly 7 years since I moved into this house – it feels like home. On the day we’d originally viewed it, we also viewed…
And Then There Were None
One swallow doesn’t make a summer. But what if there are none at all? Do you have swallows near you at the moment? I don’t. They’re an unmistakable sign of summer in the UK – but last year I didn’t see any at all from my garden. They’re…
A Week Off Work – At Last
What with Covid-19 and lockdown and furlough and being a key worker and everything, the week off that I’d booked for the week after Easter didn’t happen. That means this is my first annual leave since Christmas, and I am SO looking forward…
