Author Archives: theharridan

How best to lift the mood right now? My answer is simple and lies in half price easter eggs from Waitrose. Sure, there’s an hour long wait in the queue which snakes up around the block on the shady cold … Continue reading →

This is how lockdown with six kids and a dog in a two bedroomed flat looks like. 5:27am. The baby wakes. I get him from his cot in the hallway outside our bedroom door. He has breastmilk. He has used … Continue reading →

Yes, that’s right – March 19th is publication day for The Best, Most Awful Job (YOU CAN BUY IT HERE: Hive: http://bit.ly/bmajHive [for independent bookshops in the UK], Amazon: https://amzn.to/39MC0sO, Waterstones: http://bit.ly/2IMwM4l). There was supposed to be a launch party tonight, for which I was going to … Continue reading →

It’s been such a long time since an old lady had a go at me in public for my terrible parenting. I was beginning to think I had this gig objectively nailed, but that, alas, was not to be the … Continue reading →

It’s been nearly a week since Mark and Otis left to fly through the night, and day, then drive for hours into the summery afternoon half a world away with jetlaggy dust clouding their vision and sinusitis colonising their nasal … Continue reading →

Oh, January. Oh, how you have teased me with your ups and downs. In the space of 29 days, I have gone from thinking I was highly employable, sought after, on the cusp of career greatness (throwing around ideas of … Continue reading →

Happy New Year’s Eve, lovers! It’s 7:47am and the baby and I have been up, skyped my mum and dad, discussed financial planning, ate bacon, pulled the little wool bundles that accumulate every day off the new rug, rescued a … Continue reading →

I know, I know – let’s not get all American about things, but Thanksgiving does make me pause to think about what I am grateful for – which is an excellent reflective habit to get into if you can. When … Continue reading →

I have a very healthy relationship with charity shops, forged when my mother would take me to the Salvation Army’s Nearly New Shop for a rummage in the ’80s, back when I was small, skinny, and before my mullet got … Continue reading →

That baby of mine works as an effective alarm clock in the week, getting me up at 6:30am pretty much on the dot every morning. This is obviously most excellent except for the weekends when it is a kind of … Continue reading →