beckity

  Marek walks through the door and asks if I was ready. "Are we running?" I ask, taking a breathe, thinking about whether I wanted to run or not. "What about the bikes?" he suggests "We can test out that puncture I repaired." A much better idea! The sun was shining, the lunch break had only just started, we could head to the fields just beyond the cemetery and get a good hour's exercise in. *** As we cycled out of the trees into the fields, I took it all in and felt my body relax and smile. It's just so astounding, ten minutes from home in what feels like the middle of a capital city, and we're surrounded by corn.  "It's no good" I said. "I have to take a photo." I tend to take a picture at every available opportunity and in my never-ending attempts to be more present and appreciate the moment I've been trying to limit the number of photos I take. Not at all successfully. Just after I put my phone back, a wasp buzzed

We were standing in the kitchen chatting, when a screech like I'd never heard before came in through the open window.  'What's that?' I wondered out loud, a sinking feeling reaching me before the realisation hit me just as Olha named it 'the rabbits?' The shrieking continued as I ran down the stairs and out into the garden, my feet moving beneath me without me telling them what to do.  As I arrived at the rabbit enclosure I looked over to see a red fox, inside the rabbit house. A voice I didn't recognise left my throat and shouted 'Oh My God!' The fox, which had had its jaws around Mocha's neck, let him go, and Mocha shot up the stairs into the upstairs, joining his brother Benek in the relative safety of the first floor. I reached in and shut the door at the top of ladder, keeping them inside before turning my attention to their attacker. The fox, disoriented, wasn't finding the door to get out so I stepped backwards and closed my mouth, whi

'What's that in the birdhouse hole?' I looked up from the dishwasher. 'Er, looks like a bird to me.' 'Yes,' Marek said, 'But the parents have both come out. Is that one of the babies?' We looked out of the kitchen window at the birdhouse on the treehouse opposite.  The head looked out further from the hole, then suddenly in a flutter of wings, it emerged and landed on one of the branches of the treehouse tree. Louise gasped. 'It came out!' The parent birds both appeared suddenly, landing close to their fledgling and tweeting their hearts out. Even before my gaze had shifted back to the birdhouse, another baby bird appeared, zigzagging across the garden and coming to rest in the sour cherry tree. The parent birds were still perched on branches of the treehouse tree. Watching. One flew closer to the second baby. Right away a third appeared. No wonder those parent birds have been flying backwards and forwards non stop for weeks now. Three mouths

We were on our way to pick up Elsie from a weekend scout camp. Marek driving, me in the front ready to jump out and get into the station on time, and Louise in the back, commenting on Brussels as it went past outside her car window. 'Oh, j'ai vu, j'ai vu...' she said as we circled the Schuman roundabout. 'What did you see, my love?' I ask, looking back over my shoulder. 'J'ai vu, le truc de l'equipe de Granny et Gra-Gra' 'The team?' I repeat, wondering what she means. 'Do you mean their country? Did you see the British flag?  'Oui, leur drapeau' she agrees, but she wasn't thinking of the Union Jack. 'La ! La !' she points, as we round the Berlaymont and drive past its many flagpoles. 'Voila le drapeau de Granny et Gra-Gra !'  You can tell she's the granddaughter of anti-Brexit campaigners. It was the EU flag.

 It had been a long day and little girls not listening was not helping. "Please Louise" my voice rose a little higher than I'd planned. "Just pass me the book, as I keep asking you." "Mamam!" she turned towards me, her big brown eyes wide and earnest. "Tu dois faire A DEEP BREATH!" The giggle worked just as well.

I stand in line behind an older woman, look over the couques spread out in front of me. The woman is handed her baguette and says she hasn't seen this market stall in St Gilles recently. 'Oh no, madame!' the baker says, ' I don't go there anymore, Sundays are off my list. It's my age you see.' 'You're right,' the woman says, 'you can't work all the time.' 'As it is, I do Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, FRIDAYS!' the baker settles into the conversation. 'And it's early starts...' The older woman continues to sympathise, and they turn to me for confirmation. 'Everyone needs to rest from time to time.' I agree. The women in front of me turns to face me and looks hard into my eyes. 'Il faut vivre, Madame!'

It was nice talking to your friend after school today Loulou. It's a pity you couldn't go to her party at the weekend. Do you remember why you didn't go? Oui, parce que j'étais fatiguée. That's right. You were tired and not feeling well.  J'etais malade et j'ai écouté my body. I guess having a mum post burnout impacts things more than we realise...

On Thursday 16 January 2020 I was having a quiet word with my team leader at my desk in our open plan office, before a meeting. I'd been feeling the strain and wanted to talk about moving from full time to 4/5ths. She knew it was something I'd been considering. "How are you doing at the moment?" she asked. I tried to answer, but let out a big sob instead.  After moving to the stairwell to dry my tears, we headed to the meeting. As my finance colleague showed us slides of graphs, I couldn't hear a word she was saying. I was sitting in a room with the entire office and all my energy was on stopping the tears sliding down my face. I was trying to slow my breathing, stop myself crying. It didn't work. A colleague across the room caught my eye. Her kind questioning look broke through my efforts. I got up quickly and excused myself. The HR person followed me out of the office and we went to a meeting room on another floor. For an hour, I let it all out. The frustra