I get the same order from my local coffee shop (oat milk toffee nut latte) at least once a week, but I haven’t been in for a while because I was so ill. Went in this morning and they yelled “Toffee Nut! You’re back!” 🤣

The amount of marketing professionals I see on LinkedIn waxing lyrical about Claude / Chat GPT / Gemini and how it can “do their job for them now!” is just… baffling. Like… do you really think so little of your skills? Are you really so willing to feed yourself to the lions?

Lads, I’m only front bloody row for Teddy bloody Thompson! This is my DREAM GIG and I am so excited to be here.

Excited to announce that after three weeks of nausea, I am finally both hungry for, and planning on eating, an actual meal.

Illness update (TW for weight loss): worse than yesterday, cancelled my weekend plans, barely made it to the sofa, have only eaten two slices of toast since Monday, lost 11lbs so far. Waaaaah.

The vomiting bug that went away on Saturday has come back with a vengeance and I’m sicker than ever. As in we had to get the doctor involved because I can’t even keep fluids down. Pls pray / send good thoughts that the medication he’s prescribed will help.

I’ve been off sick for three days. Made the mistake of looking at my inbox ahead of starting back tomorrow. Lord, I wish I hadn’t. 😬

I don’t have many triggers, in the clinical sense of the word, but the few I do have all came at once today. So that was fun. Getting into bed feeling like I’ve been hit by a freight train and hoping for a better day tomorrow. Good thoughts / prayers to the deity of your preference very welcomed. ❤️

Am I immediately rewatching Heated Rivalry after finishing it for the first time? Yes, yes I am.

The storyline in the Pitt where Dana teaches the new nurse how to prepare a body for family viewing is so important.

Was telling my other half this morning that I’ve never had such bad hayfever as I have this year – in fact, before I would have said I don’t really get hayfever but this month it’s felt like my head’s exploding with it.

Currently adding all the correct metadata to all our audiobooks which is… an unbelievably tedious and intricate job. Though I did get to create a particularly spectacular Excel spreadsheet with checkboxes and conditional formatting to keep track of it, so it’s not all bad.

I hate insomnia so much. Finally fell asleep just before 1am, woke up at 3.50, still awake now and lying here in a panic about having to face the day on under 3 hours sleep. And of course the more you worry, the worst it gets. Argh.

8 y/o: “Is that what you’re wearing today, Mummy?” Me: “Well I was planning to… why?” 8 y/o: “It’s just a bit… plain. But—“ (here she gave a sigh of weary resignation) “—I guess we all get to choose what we wear for ourselves, so…”

Pushing my luck. #fpl

Went to see Josh Widdicombe tonight and got upgraded to a box, which was lovely until it resulted in him asking me how I’d ended up in NI and when I replied saying that I’d married a Northern Irish man he asked “So where is he, then?” AWKWARD.

Left the house this morning feeling flustered and a bit of a mess, only to be greeted at the school gates by a mum friend who told me I always look so “put together and blooming and full of the joys of being alive”.

Parklife.

Impromptu trip to the pub + bumped into friends walking home. I love living in this village.

It’s my kid’s gymnastics class time again and I’m having to bring the soothing forest sounds back – but this time it’s not so much the noisy children as the parent playing a video about motorbikes at full volume 🙃

One of the most meaningful experiences of my life was getting the first Covid vaccine (TW for Covid/cardiac issues). My husband died during Covid (of an unrelated heart condition) and it’s an understatement to say that it was an awful time to lose someone. (1/9)

I am honestly beyond FURIOUS that PMDD / perimenopause is sucking the enjoyment out of two weeks of my every month and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it, apparently.

Listening to “relaxing forest sounds” through my noise cancelling headphones at the kid’s gymnastics class, in case you’re wondering how my day is going 🙃

I still sing Chrissy, Wake Up to myself at least once a week. What a banger. youtu.be/noYBV61kh7s?...

Tomorrow I have to go and be measured for my wedding dress and it has sent me into an absolute spiral of self-loathing. So that’s fun.

Sometimes I’m sad that circumstances meant that I only had one child – but then I remember that my daughter has never had a play date without me ending up overstimulated to the point of tears during or after and realise that I was definitely only meant to have one child 🙃

This Artemis II / Big Orange Warmonger section of our timeline is a whiplash-inducing headfuck, that’s for sure.

Got one of those behind-the-sofa console tables and I cannot believe the difference it’s made to the overall coziness of our living room. My favourite place to be.

I have a week off work, hoorah! …so of course I have tonsillitis 🙃 WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN? As soon as you get a break, your body betrays you? And of course we have loads of Easter plans that I will need to power through so I’ll go back to work feeling worse than I did before. Ffs.

Has… has anyone else read the Kindle version of Nonesuch? Was there an epilogue that seemed to be from an entirely different book? Am I just being stupid? (What a bloody marvellous read, though.)

I’m actually a bit annoyed by how much I like Lana Del Rey’s White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter. It’s like she read everything everyone said they were dreading they’d see in her post-marriage songwriting, used it, and yet somehow achieved what so many fail to: a decent song about a happy marriage.

Lads, I cooked this tonight and it was a) easy as could be and b) flippin’ delicious. Highly recommended. www.cherrypick.co/recipe/cherr...

It’s been the kind of day where I’ve had to take myself off for a silent, candlelit bath 🙃

Obviously I’ve no idea what’s happened, but I’m a bit gutted about Scott Mills. I’ve been listening to him on the radio since I was a pre-teen and imo he was up there with the best of the best. Awful for his team, too.

Oh my God, the moment in Shrinking when Jimmy’s dad compares his new girlfriend to his dead wife and says his new girlfriend is a “better fit”? That shit cut DEEP (and yes, people really do that, and yes, it sucks as bad as you think it would, and no, neither I nor my partner want to hear it, ta).

Just got into bed and a bumblebee crawled out of my pillowcase and onto my face so if anybody wants me I’ll be mildly hyperventilating for the next twenty minutes 🙃

Whenever I’m struggling to understand why people liked A Popular Book That I Thought Was Dreadfully Written, I remember how much fun I had reading The Da Vinci Code and it makes more sense.

Is it normal to feel utterly defeated a good proportion of the time? Say, like, ten days a month on average? I’m asking quite seriously because my sense is that it *is* normal – that feeling overwhelmed and stuck and a little bit hopeless is just part of being an adult. But I just wanted to… check.

Rewatched Ghosts with my other half (who was watching for the first time) and honestly, what an absolute gem of a TV show. It is perfect.

Today has been oddly tough. I’m very fortunate to have both a lovely mum and a (mostly) lovely daughter, and a lovely fiancé who made sure I was spoiled. But my mum is far away, and days like today always highlight the absence of my late husband.

Had to have my first “you are not leaving the house in that” conversation with my 8y/o. Felt like a portent of things to come.

When I was younger I imagined how scared those kids at Dunblane must have been, how small and terrified, their last moments full of a fear they were too young to comprehend.

George Michael’s Outside was on the radio this morning and honestly I don’t think I appreciated what a fucking baller move that was at the time. The song, the video, brave and bold and entirely unapologetic (and thank God for that). Man, he is missed.

Friday evenings in this house are perfection. 1. The child gets to watch her tablet in bed 2. My guy gets to play video games undisturbed with a large glass of red 3. I have a long candlelit bath, do a face mask, apply my gradual tan and paint my nails while enjoying Shrinking and a glass of fizz

What happened is I mentioned this absurd idea to a BBC producer and now I am writing an afternoon play for Radio 4 called THE CALL OF CTHUDO, to be recorded sometime in June with (ideally) various Green Wing alumni doing their best 1930's detective voices.

I find it so bizarre that whenever someone says they don’t want to have children they’re always asked why. As if “I don’t want to” isn’t reason enough. (And don’t get me started on people who ask, apropos of nothing, why someone doesn’t have children.)

I think my favourite word to hear in an Irish accent is “butter”. I just love it.

I can’t help but laugh when someone on social media innocently asks if NI is part of the UK or part of Ireland. Like… yes, there’s been quite some debate about that, Margaret.

2011 me would be so unbelievably tickled to know that 2025 me would cast That Guy From That Play I Watched Seventeen Times to read the audiobook of a book I edited. Tbh 2026 me is pretty tickled by it too.

Today’s tiny joys: 1. Wearing barrel jeans even though they’re not “flattering” because they’re comfortable and they make me feel great 2. Giant blueberries and strawberries with Greek yogurt and granola 3. Finally getting time to descale the coffee machine (I never said I was interesting)