SARAH PENN

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week and this year’s theme is kindness. One of the hardest people to be kind to is ourselves, particularly...

While it might not seem immediately obvious that new mums/dads will suffer more than others, I believe they will especially struggle.

I can feel the effects of lockdown building – tiny itches building into wholescale irritation

One thing I’ve learned the hard way over the 19 months since my daughter was born is that my thoughts are not necessarily my friends....

I’ve taken a bit of a downturn physically over the last few days and am now on antibiotics for a chest infection sparked initially by...

Blossom white and pink has been swirling through the sun-soaked backways. The seasons seem to be rolling on regardless – some things at...

It is obvious to the point of boring that toddlers are a nightmare. Shouty, capricious little bullies who devote their new-found physical...

A week after full lockdown and it feels like a lifetime. I struggle to believe how I once happily passed within 2 metres of other humans,...

Are we there yet? Surely it has already been several years since we went in to lockdown? The calendar must have broken. Bizarrely my...

It’s official. We are now living in an alternative reality. Our lives have become a disaster movie. Suddenly Boris is the unlikely actor...

In the immortal words of Bake-Off’s Rahul, I am prone to “dooming”. Even when things are seemingly bright and sunny, my mind has a...

As the bright sunshine warms the ground, my daffodils stand alert. The cat is curled in a pocket of light – the dust motes dance in the...

After the storms stopped swirling and the green shoots started to show through soggy ground, the virus came. As the global tumult of air...

Self-care can sound either so fluffy and lovely you wonder why we don’t all do it or so selfish that only arrogant narcissists can...

January must have been invented by someone with a sick sense of humour. We start the year penniless, plump and probably ill. It’s wet and...

This time last year I was a patient on a mother and baby unit at a psychiatric hospital in the north east. I had suffered badly with...

Stock the medicine cupboard - Christmas provides a cruel combination of germs and reduced opening hours of places where you might buy...