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Of course these are designed to be hacked through with a machete. Except at 60 you are starting to get a little resistant. I get up at 6.30, let the dogs out, make the coffee which has to be made in a Cafetiere or French Press, if you prefer the term, and then I watch the stock market channel. When the routine is busted, I feel a little out of sorts. You are 60 not 90, you yell! I know! But by the time you reach 60, you've usually been through many highs and lows. Your tol

What, a British person, lecturing me on positivity? What if I match you and raise you Disney World? You ridiculous Brits! British people are notoriously critical, cynical; everything is grim until it's proven otherwise. Dear Pop (my dad), one of your favorite phrases is "it's not unpleasant" He could say, "it's pleasant" but he doesn't. And Pop is not a negative person, he's just very British. British people of his generation phrase things like that; no idea why. Maybe b

I want to talk about the best football club in the world! Not American football, which is mostly played with your hands, but real football played with your feet!! Chelsea! Many of us follow a team and many of us are passionate about our teams. Hopefully we follow them in sickness and in health! Yesterday Chelsea were on death watch in the first half against West Ham. The fans in the home ground of Stamford Bridge booed them off the field. That cannot be a good feeling, no

This ties into mental toughness, again! Why is mental toughness so sought after? Because, at many moments through our lives, we doubt ourselves. Mental toughness is the holy grail. It allows you to do everything; be the best, earn the most, achieve, achieve, achieve! Belief is a little gentler. I'm fonder of belief. It's a soft cotton versus the hair shirt of toughness. Toughness can get unruly. It can feed on itself and become selfish, excluding; some self aggrandizemen

I had an epiphany! Actually, it was more of a sad realization. Sixty is not young. No matter what spin you apply, you are aged beef and it ain't prime, or choice for that matter! This was abundantly obvious watching Aussie doubles this week. It's a familiar feeling. We all think we move like that, fast and athletic. It feels like you are motoring on the court, but by sixty those muscle fibers are hardly twitching fast. More like the sporadic twitch you get in your eye whe

Any tennis player worth their salt will tell you tennis is a mental game. If I'd realized that in the beginning I would have probably thrown my racket off the Forth Bridge. The Forth Bridge is in Scotland. It's huge and red and worthy of a dramatic gesture. I would imagine many sets of golf clubs have been hurled into the roiling river below. I'm more accepting of the situation now. 'Mental Toughness' is a frightening phrase to those who doubt they have it. Tennis has tau

For those of us who have a long time partner, we know that their little nighttime snorts and grunts were sweet thirty odd years ago. The dog's snores are always sweet. They can do nothing wrong. They own the bedroom, the house, the fridge. This may not resonate with non dog owners. My advice; get a dog. You'll know what we are talking about! Back to the partner, whose snores have now developed into thunderous, wall shaking, wrecking ball explosions. It will last for at

The pinnacle of achievement in a British person's life is to effortlessly whip up the divine Yorkshire Pud!! And no, my stateside friends, it is not a glorified popover, it is the slightly crisp, lightly chewy, born from British beef fat, glorious high rise consummate maiden to the Beef Rump Roast!! Shortly, I will go in my kitchen and perform the magic! If it is a success, and I can summon the technical prowess, I will post a picture. If not, you will never have to suffer

Briskly arising at the sound of Leda's (little Fox Terrier/Chihuahua mix) rustling and throwing on some discarded clothes from the night before, it's out into the tundra, aka the front yard. Zelda, larger, with a coat to rival a polar bear, skips around in the snow looking to terrorize a squirrel. Leda, usually a turbo pooper, is as pokey on the pot as a man reading his favorite sports page. With feels like 9 degrees, a sweater is marginally more useful than a bikini. It rem

It is almost 2026 and new resolutions loom. These are they! Be at peace with my family, however strange their paths maybe Make my elderly parents laugh Get better at tennis There's many less appetizing commitments to make. Drink less wine; make more use of the vacuum cleaner; give up chips, or crisps, or both. A resounding NO! No need to get puritanical just because you are entering your 60th year! 60 is quite the doozy for a girl. It is often the time of cheese and pickl