children | verbalberbal

Posted on December 4, 2012 by talkaholics

Meet the Fockers by Emily Smart

The other half said to me the other day, ‘stop looking like your dad.’ I had just woken from a little afternoon nap, my hair was all tufty and apparently my nose was looking as big as my father’s. It’s not really a compliment to be told you look like your 65 year old father when you’re quite a lot younger and the opposite sex. Just to add to my misery, my dad reckons he looks like Anthony Hopkins. When he played Hannibal Lecter. In ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. He used… Read More

Posted on October 25, 2012 by talkaholics

The Walking School Bus by Angela Caldin

When a friend mentioned to me something called the walking school bus, I really didn’t know what she was on about. I tend to take things literally, so I wondered how on earth a bus could walk and why you would want it to. But then my granddaughter started school and I came to grips with the reality of this brilliant idea. I don’t know if they have them in the UK, but here in New Zealand they are a major feature of getting to school. The idea is very simple: the… Read More

Posted on August 18, 2012 by talkaholics

Cha Cha Cha Changes. By Emily Smart

It’s a funny thing turning forty. Not funny ha ha, or even peculiar, more bloody annoying than funny actually. I remember when I was kid and my parents hit the big 40. In my mind they may just as well have turned seventy. I have been in my forties now for a while and I am starting to realise just why people have a ‘mid-life crisis’ or look at things differently when they say goodbye to their thirties.