So here I am sat at the computer again. Big screen, little screen, cardboard, fish, as they say. The technology has changed, the cables have changed, the logos have changed, but the throbbing vein in my temple remains stubbornly consistent. We keep doing this, and it’s starting to get on my nerves. The first time […]
The boat became an impossible project because we let it. At the start it was just a bit chaotic. A few jobs open at once. Nothing unusual. But the electrics had been fiddled with, extra pipework had been added for hot water, insulation had been started but not finished. Everywhere you looked there was something […]
I once turned a small problem into a full day’s work by refusing to leave it alone. It started with something minor. A settings issue on the iMac — nothing serious, just one of those slightly irritating things that makes you feel like the system isn’t quite “right.” I told myself I’d fix it quickly. […]
The last week was worse than watching paint dry. It was watching grout dry. A version of a shower had arrived.Hot water too. Hot water had been a fight—willpower against space. We won. Just. A week earlier we’d been jumping around like kids. High fives. Laughing as hot water came through the kitchen tap. Now […]
It took a moment to realise what was happening. As my eyes adjusted, I could see my breath—like a kettle left boiling. Cold on my lips, while the rest of me was wrapped in warmth under the duvet and two dogs. Winter had arrived. The fire had gone out. Frost traced the window above the […]
It was cold enough in the evening to relight the fire. It had been off all summer. Now, for the first time, we saw its glow properly—warm orange light filling the space we’d built. The smell of melting dog fur cut through it. They hadn’t worked it out yet—curl up too close, and you singe […]
We set off at 7am to get back in time. It was Mam’s wedding day. Family, celebration, the whole thing. But that wasn’t why we left early. Now I had a plan. Get home, do the hellos, then straight back out — Barnsley. Last of a litter of Jack Russell pups. His balls hadn’t dropped […]
This was my second explosion, but this one was close. Not from afar. The volume and intensity left me rattled. The smack from the oven door felt like I’d been kneecapped, and across the boat the front doors were flapping open, the bolts snapped clean off. Their face was total surprise. I know they like […]
It’s a warm afternoon in late August, maybe early September, and the smell from the river is high and thick with rot. Salmon. They come here every year to spawn, work their way upriver, do what they came to do, then die. A few days later they’re floating back out again, spent and splitting in […]