#atinylife Screaming

Today I have been thinking about…screaming.

There are days when a scream is necessary. A good, bloodcurdling, frighten-yourself-with-the-noise coming from your mouth scream.

It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.

Maybe your day, or week, or tinylife, has been too much. Everyone wants a piece of you, has already taken a piece of you – you are just a floating mouth, a pair of hands, ragged wisps, toiling for everyone else.

Or

maybe you had a day, or week, when one email replaced your already wonderful tinylife with another, even more amazing tinylife.

In those first days all you could hear was people telling you the news, like an echo in a cave; you couldn’t believe them. But then one night you were driving out somewhere and you just had to pull over into a layby and scream. Maybe.

#atinylife Tax

Today I have been thinking about … Tax. 

Yep, everyone’s favourite certainty.

Damned tax, paying for my kid’s education, their health (everything from cream for ringworm to the two sets of grommets ops).

Damned tax, getting your bins picked up, even if it is once a fortnight and the recycling boxes get left out on the road and run over.

Damned tax, paying for every single thing that our Local Authorities get right once in a while.

Damned tax, funding for democracy. So much more than the quick hello to the missed friend on the way to the polling station; the buzz in the village.

Damned tax, from those who can afford to pay, generating money for benefits, which go to those who haven’t got enough to go around. That’s how it should be.

Unpublished-unagented-writer-who-parents-full-time-with-tiny-life’s personal tax bill? Well, it’s zero.