There is a proverb that says 'good things come in little packages', which has often encouraged me since I'm not very tall! As a child, we tend to like the 'big' presents at Christmas; as adults, our presents tend to get smaller but cost even more! (Think of jewellery...

Living 'worry-free' seems a pipe-dream to most of us (a pipe dream is an unrealistic hope or fantasy, a phrase alluding to the strange dreams experienced by smokers of opium pipes in the 18th and 19th centuries.) We spend our lives steeped in worry, to the extent that...

'Stop mithering!' was a phrase I heard frequently in my childhood. For those of you not brought up in the Barnsley area of South Yorkshire, 'mither' (with a long 'i', as in 'might') may not be a familiar word. It means to fuss over something, usually with a negative...