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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Thursday, 04 February 2010 |
This month, I've started dancing lessons. It's not a new year's resolution, but more by luck that I'm going. My good friend Lou won a series of dance lessons for two people before Christmas. For some reason, her boyfriend wanted no part in it, so she offered the spare place to me. Being a big fan of the Strictly Come Dancing TV series, I jumped at the opportunity. I was excited to see that each week we'd be learning a new style of dance and had images of dancing the Tango in no time at all.
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Friday, 18 December 2009 |
We seem to spend most of our lives waiting, writes Cheryl Norton-Barry. There are the big waits, such as waiting for a holiday, waiting for the right partner, waiting for the right job. Then there are the daily, mundane waits, such as waiting for the train, waiting for the queue at the cash machine to disperse, waiting for the weekend.
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Wednesday, 25 November 2009 |
As I write this, I've been a married woman now for six whole weeks, writes Cheryl Norton. Despite the broken wrist and bouts of tonsillitis, we made it to the ‘Big Day’ with no other problems. We had a fantastic time - the weather just about held off, the food (homemade pie and mash) went down a treat and the drinking and dancing went on all night. It was just so brilliant to be surrounded by all of our friends and family for one whole day.
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Tuesday, 27 October 2009 |
Two weeks before the wedding day, The Boyfriend had tonsillitis and I had sinusitis, writes Cheryl Norton. It's now a week to go until we get married and I'm typing this with a plaster cast on my right hand. In true cliché style, I broke my wrist on my hen weekend.
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Tuesday, 06 October 2009 |
‘Chuggers’, or charity muggers, is the name given to the street fundraisers that try to get people to sign up to various charities.
Tottenham Court Road, close to where I work, is besieged with them. Every day there seems to be a different set of people representing a different charity out in force, wearing their brightly coloured coats, weighed down with clipboards and armfuls of literature. "Fair enough!" I hear you cry. "Lay off the decent charity people; they're doing a damn fine job." And I would agree with you....to a point. But what I really object to are their tactics in trying to get money out of you.
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Thursday, 20 August 2009 |
I'm writing this mid-August, which means it's once again the start of the silly season, writes Cheryl Norton. Yes, the return of the football season; seemingly endless games of football dominating the TV channels and conversation for what feels like an eternity, or at least until May 2010 (oh God, and I was forgetting the World Cup!).
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Thursday, 30 July 2009 |
Or perhaps you prefer Skinflint? Stingy? Cheap? Or just plain Pikey?
Whatever name you want to use, I think this has to be one of the most unattractive qualities in a person, whether it be a friend or your partner. There's nothing more irritating, or downright annoying, than someone who doesn't pay their way.
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Wednesday, 08 July 2009 |
It seems we're a nation obsessed with health scares, writes Cheryl Norton. If we're not worrying about swine flu, then we're pondering about just how much red meat we can eat in a week, or how many glasses of red wine is acceptable in a day. One of the reasons we're constantly in a state of bafflement is because the views of the experts seem to change from one minute to the next. Just the other week I was reading that one glass of red wine a day is good for you as it's supposedly good for the heart. Then the next minute, all alcohol is deemed to be the work of the devil and we should all stay well clear of the stuff. Who's to know what the hell to do - but in this particular example, I think I'll stick with the first piece of advice.
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Tuesday, 28 April 2009 |
 My brother-in-law has a passion for fishing. Most weekends he'll take himself off at the crack of dawn to a lake somewhere in Essex and spend the whole day until dusk fishing.
Last weekend, my sister and I went for a walk and ended up at Newland Hall to meet the brother-in-law. He proudly showed us photo’s on his mobile phone of two rather large fish lying on the ground. I was intrigued, not only by his animated behaviour, but it got me thinking about just what a bizarre activity fishing really is. The brother-in-law quite happily spends all day long looking at a line of nylon waiting for a fish to bite. When he eventually gets a catch, he hauls it out of the water, weighs it, photographs it, then promptly puts it back in for someone else to have a go at. It's not really a sport, or a game, is it? There's no chasing a ball into a net, or even a sense of competition. So how can you decide if you've had a good days fishing when you're just waiting for one to swim along and hook itself onto the end of your line? And what about the fish? Surely there's only a finite number of fish in the lakes of Essex, so isn't it all a bit bizarre that all of the fishermen are chasing after the exact same fish?
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Written by Cheryl Norton
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Friday, 17 April 2009 |
Last week my parents set off for a six week holiday in New Zealand,they were very excited about taking time out to travel about in what my mum kept calling a ‘campervan’. Actually, it's more like a posh ‘motorhome’ complete with fitted cupboards and a bathroom. "You and your sisters have all been travelling and now it's our turn," she said. I suppose that's the good thing about travelling later in life - you can do it, to some degree, in a bit of style - unlike myself who lived like a tramp as I travelled around the world on a shoe string a certain number of years ago.
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