Gently Does It

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Home and belonging

How do you want to feel in 2025?
Same same but different is the phrase that springs to my mind. Words borrowed from a tapas bar in Bath that feel bang on for the first week of this…
17
Sliding into the end of the year, slowly
Whilst remembering to keep a cool head and warm heart.
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Harriet Mason
17
Help, the dog's stuck in the tarn
On Bella the 13 year old labrador getting stuck (and rescued) from the water, calling out the fire brigade and sticking to my writing streak.
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Harriet Mason
10
My next home will have dark green shutters
Shutters that lie against sun bleached terracotta painted walls. It'll sit amongst other apricot and pistachio green buildings, a stones throw from a…
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Harriet Mason
19
Lessons in love and other eighties musical confessions
From Level 42 to Curiosity killed the Cat, the Eurythmics and Wham! The musical rabbit hole is my favourite kind of writing rabbit hole to fall down.
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Harriet Mason
8
You're not half bad...
Greetings from the sofa in my kitchen this mid-September Friday afternoon. It’s been a chilly day softened by the welcome appearance of clear blue sky…
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Harriet Mason
7
An unconventional packing list
‘I've got nineteen books and those piles of CDs; but what about my 3D printer? And my crochet & Rubik's cubes?’ said the 19-year-old when I asked him…
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Harriet Mason
2
All hail the empty nesters and the almost empty nesters
I wished I’d known how unsettling and jangly this phase of parenthood is because I’d have taken far greater care of the friends and family who were…
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Harriet Mason
1
Letters from Mallorca
It was 1993, I was 21 and spending the summer working in Palma de Mallorca. My parents kept my letters home & discovering them sparked all sorts of…
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Harriet Mason
12
Hello to now and hello to daydreaming
As the children hurtle through their teens into young adulthood we're daydreaming and quietly painting a picture of what our 'what next' might look…
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Harriet Mason
Feeling at home in my body
Is one of the reasons I’ve struggled to feel at home - not just here in Yorkshire but from my twenties onwards - because I haven’t felt at home in my…
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Harriet Mason
Where do you feel at home?
Thoughts on home: Is it one place, or maybe there’s more than one place where you feel at home. And what makes it home anyway, what does that feel like?
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Harriet Mason
22
© 2025 Harriet Mason
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