Sunday Blog 239 – 28th June 2026 I’ve more to add to my post-traumatic growth series of blogs – but today just wasn’t the day. I needed to take a breath, bask in the nervous excitement of the-day-before-travel. Tomorrow I fly out to Paris for five weeks of research, writing, working, catching up with friends …
Author Archives: pipbrennan
Post-traumatic Growth is a Thing – Part Two
Sunday Blog 238 – 21st June 2026 In the middle of the night, 10th May 2002, I woke up, lay in my bed for a moment or two. Then I heard the soft padding of feet. Perhaps that sound had woken me up. A subtle sound that seemed to come from the kitchen. Could that …
Continue reading “Post-traumatic Growth is a Thing – Part Two”
Post-traumatic growth is a Thing – Part One
Sunday Blog 237 – 14 June 2026 I’d been at an art workshop in London, in the very early days after my arrival, in 1990. I was trying on new identities on the other side of the world from my birth family. Anyway, at the end of the course, a few of us decided to …
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Seven Year Cycles
Or should I call this muted, belated birthdays? Sunday Blog 236 – 7 June 2026 Maybe it’s a man thing, indifference about birthdays. My father was always slightly bemused by the fuss we created on his big day, but he went along with it cheerfully enough. Darling husband (who may or may not be somewhat …
Turns Out
I should’ve been WOOPing all these goal-setting years… Sunday Blog 235 – 24th May 2026 For those of you who know me, goal setting is my jam. There’s nothing I love more than cracking the spine of a planner in January and spending a whole afternoon paddling around in all my wishes and dreams and …
Remembering/forgetting
Sunday Blog 234 – 17 May 2026 I’m in Margaret River for the Readers and Writers Festival. Previous visits to this town have washed me through with melancholy. Five years ago in 2021 when I attended the same event, I was gripped with a sharp grief at the absence of my parent’s generation. I could …
10 May
Sunday Blog 233 – 10th May 2026 There is a trigger warning for this post which contains the details and reflections of sexual assault. Please take care when reading or scroll on by if this is not for you. “One day this date won’t mean anything. You won’t even remember it.” So said a friend …
Hairy, misbehaving women
Sunday Blog 232 – 3 May 2026 A trigger warning applies to this blog as I end it with a disclosure of sexual assault I survived more than two decades ago. Please take care when reading. It’s always illuminating to sup with the youngsters; Millennials, Gen Z’ers. At a recent dinner, the subject of the …
Reflections on war
Sunday Blog 231 – 26th April 2026 November 11, Remembrance Day 2025. I’m at Perth airport on my way to Melbourne for a meeting. The incessant cacophony of plane announcements is interrupted just before 11am. A recorded voice breaks out with The Ode. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we …
On a Garner kick
Sunday Blog 230 – 12th April 2026 “Are you going to read all that?” the young waitress asked as she laid down my cappuccino in a mug in front of me with a flourish. And not a drop spilled. “That’s so impressive!” I caught her accolade deftly, but I was hurtling along on the crest …