mental health – La Vue du Maine

Let It Be

Like many others, I am sure, I watched Paul McCartney’s set at this year’s Glastonbury Festival with a mixture of awe and nostalgia. He’s eighty years old! I was already in bed when he went out on stage… In all honesty, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love The Beatles. They rose toContinue reading “Let It Be”

A Journey in my Head

But by the end of last week, everything had more or less fallen into place. All the hotels, crossings and appointments are booked, everything that can be done in advance has been. Excellent. Then I realised that I didn’t feel better. Well, not substantially.

Summer rain

The other reason I haven’t been writing posts recently is that I have been trying to focus on another project. I’ve had an idea for a new novel, and I got quite excited about it, because it’s the first time I’ve had anything like inspiration for fiction writing in – literally – years. It’s still very much just a WIP: I have a main character and the barest of outlines of a story arc. But it is definitely progress of a sort.

Mammogate

You know what? I think I’ll blame Tom Hiddleston. You’ll see what I mean. I had a mammogram last week. It wasn’t my first one since we moved here: France operates wide-ranging cancer-screening campaigns, offered to all citizens according to age and sex. It’s one reason why the death rate from cancer here is oneContinue reading “Mammogate”

What is wrong with me?

About two or so years ago, I had something of an epiphany. I realised that I was still telling myself “If I can just get through…” (fill in whatever I was facing). As long as I could remember, I’d been doing that. All my life, whether it was the rest of the school term, theContinue reading “What is wrong with me?”