Living in Worthing – Globetrotter Style

Why would a globetrotter with 66 countires under their belt return again and again to Worthing? Can it be the vegan sausage rolls? Ot the bountiful opportunities to get a nose hair wax? Terry tells me what pulls him here.

Coastal Remote Working – A Very Hot Desk At the Seaside

The town appeared to have somehow catapulted straight from 1960s to the 2000s. Time felt woozy. Millenial nostalgia for the mid-century modern collided with memories of actual mid-century, when life really did feel modern, in a not-ironic way.For an hour or two, I lived the fantasy of moving to Whitstable for the last part of my life: a return to Kentish birthplace but folding in that seaside vibe I’ve grown to love.

Closing in on Food Waste

One minute everybody was scoffing 2 or 3 choc-chip brioches a day, leading to mild stockpiling on my part. Those bloody ‘3 for 2’ offers play their own guilty part in this practice. And then, bugger me, 3 weeks later, everyone was ‘off brioche’ and ‘into mini cheeses’.

Chatting Creativity & Thriving – With Independent Worthing

While there is a familiar shared trajectory to the gentrification and regeneration process, there can be many missed opportunities to intervene and shape the (inevitable) process of change in positive and inclusive ways.

Chatting Creativity & Thriving – With Independent Worthing

Things were getting nasty. Anyone opening the fridge door would find me right behind them, reminding them that, “Those are the only olives we have”, or “I was planning on using that mozzarella on a home-made pizza tomorrow”. I wasn’t exactly hiding the chickpeas, but I did count the tins every morning.

Shitty Crafts

After going all un-Boomer ish last post and plastering my personal life all over the blog, which has had great positive responses, I thought I’d do a quick share of something I got into over lockdown, which began as something of a time-pass and then turned into both a kind of mindfulness practice and alsoContinue reading “Shitty Crafts”

Queer Love in the Time of Covid (Part 2 of 2)

A Sussex lockdown queer wedding. Blending some old and well-known traditions with Celtic spirituality and a nod to church roots worked. And at no point did it ever feel like ‘Sheilaism’ (the term Robert Bellah famously used for describing the contemporary fall from traditional religion and rituals and into an utterly individualistic solipsistic pick-and-mix contemporary state of ‘spiritual but not religious’). The celebrant reminded us Boomers how far we’ve come since our teens, when ‘gay wedding’ was preposterous blasphemy. Keep an open mind.  Allow the unexpected into your life.

Who’s Living Nextdoor?

A chaotic mix of entrepreneurial hustle, neighbourly compassion, lost pets, reports about traffic, queues and crowds, curiosity about roadworks or wildlife species spotted- and a fair bit of baiting and toxic trouble-stirring. Lockdown has intensified both the volume of traffic and the emotional charge.