Category: Uncategorized
-
On turning 39
They say that the best years of a woman’s life are the ten years between 39 and 40. The implication being that women feel compelled to claim we’re 39 for a lot longer than our birth certificate would permit if it could talk. Very amusing, huh? Whatever. Who even are “they”, anyway? I spit in…
-
Making up is hard to do
Lockdown has changed all of us in different ways, big and small. Many of us will be shopping locally, adjusting our travel habits and feeling a renewed gratitude for things we previously took for granted. One fundamental way lockdown has changed me is that I will be spending far more time “maked” – barefaced and…
-
What’s so funny about peace, love and a level playing field?
Nearly into week ten of lockdown, and we’re all desperate to get back to normal, right? But in the clamour, I believe we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ask ourselves whether, collectively, “normal” is what we want. After all, “normal” wasn’t working for the majority of people. Even before this crisis hit, Wales was a…
-
Remember – A note from Spring 2020
Dear Sara, Remember Easter Sunday, alone on a hilltop overlooking the city. Birdsong drowning out the sound of the very occasional car. A city that is sun-drenched and cloudless. Eerily quiet, but far from at peace. The famous white cocktail sticks of the Millennium Stadium now mark a field hospital. Remember thinking of the people…
-
When this is all over
Am I the only one starting most of my sentences with the words “when this is all over”? It’s day 13 of lockdown for my son and me after he developed a fever two weekends ago. It feels like a lifetime since he woke up complaining of feeling hot and coughing. I’m glad to report…
-
Calais in the time of Coronavirus: Stories from the front line of the refugee crisis
Aneta Kawecka is a Polish-born ethical fashion stylist now based in Paris, France. She is a wonderful human being I am proud to call a friend. Aneta has just returned from her fourth stint volunteering with the Refugee Community Kitchen in Calais. This time, Coronavirus cut short her volunteering. We were talking about the…
-
Festivals, Socrates and me
As you read this, I will be luxuriating in a birthday hot tub, knocking back cheap fizz, encrusted in glitter and hairspray. Where will I be lapping up such luxuries? At a spa resort before a night on the town, perhaps? Err, no. You will find me at Green Man, that most bucolic of all…
-
The mixtape is dead. Long live the mixtape!
It all started with Lee Davies*, on our annual church coach trip to the seaside, sometime in the early 90s. “Here, have a listen to this”, he enthusiastically commanded, shoving a pair of scratchy foam Walkman headphones onto my ringleted ten-year-old head. Lee was two years older than me, friends with my cousin, and my…
-
On finding my green fingers…
This column first appeared in The Western Mail on Saturday 22nd June 2019. As a kid, I’d watch my parents spend hours making up hanging baskets together. They’d sit on the patio, tag teaming as they painstakingly planted their floral masterpieces. I remember pansies, primroses and lobelias, vibrant reds and vivid greens, bursting violently from…
-
Harder now that it’s over: An open letter to Ryan Adams
Dear Ryan, I’m not in the habit of writing open letters to famous singer-songwriters who will never read them. But I’ve been feeling so angry, and disappointed, today. Actually, disappointed seems too weak a word for what I feel right now. So I had to write this just to empty the feelings from my head,…
silverdiscodaps.com 