Talking Frankly is about everything from housework to human rights. It is a mixture of observation, commentary and opinions.
It also contains a lot of profanity along with the humanity. And please don’t steal my work. Somebody invariably dobs you in and it gets messy.
Enjoy!
Dear New Mum
The Western Sydney University has this great initiative called the "Mother’s Day Letters Project". It came to my attention via a friend studying to be a midwife. The project is about supporting new mums and promoting resilient motherhood.And my one piece of advice...
Old correspondence feels
Last weekend I spent a pleasant couple of hours sorting through a box which I have moved many times over the last twenty years but never unpacked.It was full of old correspondence from my late teens into my late twenties.Birthday cards, letters, invitations to...
Too much and not enough
Little one. I see you and my heart explodes. It also aches for you sometimes.You're only seven and already the world is busy telling you how you are too much and not enough.You're too loud. Too noisy. Too exuberant. Too talkative. Too energetic. Too everything.Except...
So. I had a brain haemorrhage
An acute right sided deep small to moderate sized intracerebral haemorrhage in fact.A stroke.Or as the Germans call it - a schlagenfall.I had it on the first Sunday of March. I woke up with a headache and a stiff shoulder and painkillers did nothing to relieve it. An...
My year of unsubscribe
In 2018, I set myself a challenge to unsubscribe from every email I didn't open immediately. Within about a minute I had of course changed that to unsubscribe REGULARLY from every email I didn't open immediately. And so it began - that first month I went through and...
The joy of unsubscribe
Oh I know how it works. It's the industry I work in. You sign up to buy a dress, get a free download, get electricity or basically anything, and you're signed up to a mailing list which promises faithfully not to send you any emails you don't want! Which we all know...
Tis the season to lie with abandon
I love Christmas don't you?It brings out everybody's inner arsehat in ways which are copious, plentiful and annoying to different people in different ways.But my favourite annual beef by THEM is the endless discussion about whether LYING to your kids and telling them...
Teaching kids to give a shit #kidsoffnauru
Explaining things to children is never easy. They have more questions than you could have ever dreamed possible when you started the conversation, and they often (thankfully) don't have the experience to realise just how awful humans can be to one another so can't...
HumanKind. Be both. Or don’t choose nursing
I have a friend who is studying to become a mid-wife. She was working the other day in a maternity ward and helped a patient out and was afterwards spoken to her by the supervising nurse who said that there was 'no time for kindness' and she needed to get on with her...
Dear Terrified of Turramurra
Dear Al, I’m suffering from anxiety and depression caused directly by Donald Trump. I am losing sleep, and have no idea where to turn. My friends just laugh at me. What should I do? Terrified of TurramurraDear Terrified of TurramurraWell firstly - your friends...
There were no gay people at my school
Not one.I went to a Catholic school so it's entirely possible they were all expelled because they would have made it hard for me to learn English, or fail maths, or any of the other things I did at school.It was really great that I grew up with no gay friends too...
Laugh and the world laughs with you
Cry and you cry alone. Unless the cumulative effect of various external factors leaves you sobbing like a loon to The Notebook while you're flying on a plane FULL of people between London and Sydney. In which case, your crying is so excessive they don't...