By: Lydia Crow I am typing this in bed, in a sleeping house. The Man is asleep beside me, one of our friends is asleep in the spare room (soon-to-be nursery), and another two asleep on the sofa-bed in the front room. Even Scapa, our four-and-a-half-month-old puppy, is asleep; a little puddle of darkness…
It’s Not Dark Yet
By: Lydia Crow “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.” (Bob Dylan) Whatever your personal belief system, everyone acknowledges that, at this time of year, many folk are gearing up for celebrations of some sort or other in about four weeks’ time. These might relate to Christmas, they might relate to the Midwinter…
Leisure (with apologies to William Henry Davies)
By: Lydia Crow What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to sit and stare. No time to sit before machines And stare at phones and tablet screens. No time to see the latest shows, Messages draft, or emails compose. No time to watch the latest memes, Refreshing timelines and…
Farewell, Facebook
By: Lydia Crow I’m not sure when certain developments started to change how I felt about social media, but it was certainly several years ago now. Whereas once it was something which brought more joy than not, now it seems its primary function is to offer us platforms upon which to stand and watch…
Be Counted
By: Lydia Crow I’ve been here before. Back in May 2017, I relaunched my #OurGirlOnTheOutside column on ShiverWriggle, with a reflection of how far the western world had come (not in the best direction) since my previous poetic musings. “And maybe, just maybe, I’ll manage more than eight posts in five years. No promises.”…
Heathland
By: Lydia Crow A fire scorched the heath last night. A burst of flame cast a shadow as far as the eye could see; leaving a changed land in its wake. A numbing, a pause. But even as we looked, hearts hollow, buds appeared again. There was no struggle to grow and heal. They…
Nurse-Bashing and Avocado-Smashing
By: Lydia Crow May-Go-Round No sooner had the Conservative manifesto been published, than there was a retraction – sorry, a clarification – of policy relating to our more elderly nearest and dearest. Even some of the more right-wing newspapers paused in their left-bashing to report on the #DementiaTax. At the point of writing this,…
A Change of Shape
By: Lydia Crow I started Our Girl on the Outside some years ago; before the ShiverWriggle hiatus, and before I cut half the content from the site and subsequently emerged bleary-eyed to throw out a few more bobs and bits to the readership that had still hung around, waiting. We were living in simpler…
Brexit Gets Harder
By: Lydia Crow Brexit gets harder As the Spanish Armada Scratch heads, befuddled.
Punching Nazis (or, ‘Sorry Mum, It’s Hard To Know What’s Right Anymore’)
By: Lydia Crow Do not resort to violence, You must learn to understand. Try to speak their language, Don’t draw lines across the sand. But when violence is their language, Inciting fear and hate, Interpretation falters, struggles; It’s too little or too late. They will choose their platform, And I will choose my own….