What’s been capturing your Stray Attention lately?

Fill me with your cultural goodness!

Take out or renew an annual subscription in April, and you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win a lovely box of goodies • Check out my in-person retreat in July

---

Lovely friends, your scribe is weary. I think I wrote in January that my dear H had been ill; well, it has continued. It has gone on, and on, and on, and we thought it was getting better, but now it’s got worse again. He’s being stoical about the whole thing, and I would like to claim that I am too, but of course I am not. Everything is hard, I am sick of loading and unloading dishwashers and washing machines, and I have occasionally been known to cry in the car through sheer self-pity. I realise this is all undignified, but, seriously, have you read my books? I don’t take things well.

I’ve thought a lot lately about the archetype of the Saintly Middle-Aged Woman, who takes all of life’s troubles to her ample bosom and never once complains. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling that I ought to be living up to this example, but I think, on balance, I’d rather not. Trying to be the Saintly Middle-Aged Woman will destroy all of us eventually; I’m claiming my permission to not put on a brave face. There have been days when I’m so tired - partly from the worry, and partly from all the stupid housework - that my brain has felt like it’s dissolving. On those days, H and I have settled on the sofa to watch re-runs of Taskmaster, and I have absolutely no regrets. We should all take our pleasures in life where we can.