Things I’ve inherited from my mother

It’s a month now since my mum’s funeral, and in that time I have cleared her house. It meant staying in the house during the week after the funeral and every weekend after that. I didn’t mind: after living there during mum’s final illness it was feeling more like home than my own house. My safe space.

My sisters didn’t want to come back (in the end, one did and one didn’t). I always did. And I found that going through mum’s stuff made me feel close to her. Not the personal stuff that you’d imagine. The clutter.

The Vinyl Revival and the Shops that Made it Happen: book review

 A few years ago I wrote a blog post about vinyl: about how it will last for ever, and about how young people didn’t get it. Well, I was right on one count.

Hurray! I am #ActuallyAutistic

Do you remember the summer you did your O Levels? Going on holiday knowing that there would be news when you got home, not knowing which way it would go or how it might change your life.

That was me in the mid-70s, in a dreary holiday camp somewhere in Norfolk. Me and my sisters, spending our lunch money on cigarettes and Walnut Whips and waiting for the evening when we could go to the disco and dance to KC and the Sunshine Band and get chatted up by unsuitable older men. And always at the back of my mind, the results waiting for me at home.

That was me again this summer, in a lovely seaside town on the south coast of England. Me and my husband, spending our lunch money on ice cream and waiting for the evening when it would stop being so hot. And at the back of my mind, the results. And I’m not talking about the World Cup.

The week before we went away, I had an assessment for autism. I knew I would get the result when I got back. And I knew I wanted it to be positive, because if it wasn’t I’d have to go back to the drawing board and find another reason for being weird.

Springwatch, M&S and ageism: things I learned in June

Here's a selection of things I found out last month. Random stuff that is too good not to share.

Here to be heard: the Slits documentary

Before punkettes, there were punkesses: that’s how the Slits were described in their early press coverage, according to this new documentary about the band. As a linguist I like that word a lot more. “Punkettes” is a diminutive – mini-punks, not the real thing – but “punkesses” is just female. And potentially, like lionesses, fierce.

Women at the BBC

Ten years ago, I wrote this in my blog:

“A group of middle-aged men are discussing 70s pop music and how good it was and I’m wondering why there are no middle-aged women there.”

Nothing has changed since then.

Book review: Untypical Girls

Me being untypical, many years ago.

When I was a teenager and I wanted to learn how to look like a punk, I didn’t have much to go on apart from the newspapers and the back cover of the New Wave compilation LP. I’d have loved a book like this.

Turning 60 (part 2): Not giving up

I've been thinking a lot about the fact that I turn 60 this year, and what it means. If anything.

I can’t at the moment think of anything good about being 60. We don’t even get a bus pass where I live. In spite of that, I don’t think my 60th birthday will feel as bad as my 50th.

Turning 60 (part 1): WTF?

Is that all there is?

This year, I turn 60. How did that happen? 60 is the age my Nana and Grandad always were. It’s where you stop being middle aged and start getting called “older”. It’s totally incompatible with my self-image. (But so was 50, and I got used to that… sort of.)