Marathon training in full stride, it was great to be invited yesterday to rest my athritic hip and blag some spectator sport as the guest of my sis and her family at Cheltenham Races. (The event’s catchy title was, ‘Festival Trials Day’, but it’s enough to know that they let total horse duffers in to…
Author: thedragonflyjar
I'm a sixty something working, single woman, navigating through all the challenges and opportunities of life - hopefully with a little irreverent humour and grace.
Lark rise
As hard as I try to reset my body clock, I seem wired to wake up early. Some might envy my vivacious response to the alarm clock, but long-term this high octane approach can be exhausting and I’m realising that it may be limiting my attempts to spontaneously accept any evening invitations (perhaps I dream)…
Low resolution
Thankfully I’m nearly into the second week of January without any public shaming for my lack of New Year resolution. I’ve been allowing myself to zone out when people mention their progress through a dry January, Veganuary, or general cheese abolition. If you know me you will know that this is not because I disapprove…
The Glad Game
The advantage of a long post-Christmas break allows me to make myself selfishly available this week to celebrate the end to my friend’s daily trips to Brighton for radiotherapy sessions. Keen readers will remember Mildred’s filthy footprints back in September and will remember why this cancer was christened Mildred (thedragonflyjar.com/…9/08/bog-off-mildred) Even if you have been…
As I live and breathe
As I live and breath, Mary Poppins has returned and she came in the form of a practically perfect (in every way) antidote to too much Christmas chocolate and an excess of lounge lizarding in festive pyjamas. As I didn’t have access to young children, I nagged Favourite Son and Favourite Daughter into Boxing Day…
The Santa Clause
I can’t remember as a teacher ever writing December 21st on the whiteboard and still trying, so close to Christmas, to convince students that GCSE set texts might be more interesting than watching ‘Elf’, ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ or eating their own body weight in Miniature Heroes. Usually, to shake off the memories of school…
Rapping up birthdays
If I had been dreading my birthday, (last Tuesday, thanks for asking), that foreboding dissipated last weekend when I was invited as a plus one to a lunchtime drinks party. I didn’t know the host at all and had decided at an event the night before that – as I really wasn’t cracking solo socialising…
Frozen
Appropriately for this time of year I’ve managed to freeze my shoulder. Not quite sure how this happened – perhaps a cocktail of an exuberant boot camp session where we were paired with another boot camper and instructed to tear each other’s arms off in the ‘warm up’, or perhaps it was my pre-marathon training…
Bounce back
Grid-locked in traffic hell this week, I became distracted by children spilling out of a school’s gates. My stationery confinement coincides with the end of the school day and I am impressed with the bubble of energy that the pupils are displaying after a day in the classroom. I’m drawn to a young girl (perhaps…
Unwrapping it
This week has heralded the switching on of three sets of Christmas lights locally. I feel distinctly anxious for December is still weeks away. While I love Christmas, I just don’t appreciate the mission creep. I come from a family of autumn birthdays and when growing up it was only fair that my sisters and…
The Dragonfly Jar 