#atinylife Hungry

You’d think I’d be hungry by now.

Two days: total calories less than a thousand.

You’d think I’d be hungry by now.

Straight to the bread bin, or the cereal cupboard, even the fruit bowl.

You’d think I’d be hungry by now.

My stomach empty and growling. My mouth empty, and growling, snapping.

You’d think I’d be hungry by now.

But it reminds me – in this country, this social class, and this life of privilege,

I don’t know what hunger is.

Not being able to feed your child as much as they want, as much as they need. Not even five miles away from here, I know there are mothers, deciding between their breakfast, and their children’s breakfast.

 

And just how much does this need to change?

You’d think I’d be hungry by now.

 

 

tinylife will be away until August.

#atinylife Vote

Today I have been thinking about…voting.

Last week we all got dragged out to vote.

Again.

There are two halves to my village, but tensions between the communities are rare: those who have lived here for a long time, and those who moved here recently, get along mostly fine.

The sun shone all day. People crossed the bridge over the Tyne-river, safely, to cast their votes.

Our polling station is an ex-Temperance Hall, a piece of our narrow-minded history, now used for toddlers, lunch club. The kids came with me: I know they are safe here, their Eastern European heritage doesn’t matter, isn’t noticed.

They wanted to remain in the polling station – to see how other people voted – but we had to leave. ‘We need to go now. People want space, and peace to vote,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’