“Take notice of what light does to everything.” Tess Guinery Early one evening after work, I took Oscar for a drive. Nothing special. Just our usual thing, music playing (loudly, his playlist of course), driving around with nowhere particular to be. Then we spotted the trees. Purple fairy lights wrapped around them outside a supermarket.… Continue reading Purple Lights

Someone said something in a leaders meeting recently that stayed with me: “Hope is not a strategy.” And in shipping, he was absolutely right! You can’t run a supply chain on hope. You need plans, data and contingencies. Hope doesn’t move a container or make the ship arrive any sooner. But in life? Absolutely, hope… Continue reading The Strategy of Hope

Just another casual conversation about the future. About change. About the years ahead - even now beginning to look towards Oscar at college. Yet in that moment, I felt like I was standing on shifting sand. I could almost feel the ground ebb away and shift beneath my feet. Just a little. The ocean is… Continue reading Shifting sands

I’m writing this from where you can find me most nights, in the corner of Oscar’s bedroom, in the dark, waiting for him to sleep. These are the moments (hours sometimes), where I pray, think, write and often, to be honest, fall asleep myself. People talk about death by a thousand papercuts - the idea… Continue reading 1000 Papercuts

Matariki has a beautiful way of slowing us down. It invites us to look back before we look forward - to honour those who shaped us and to give thanks for the gift of yesterday. This week I walked through my nana’s old house. The last time I’d been there, I was eight years old.… Continue reading Matariki

There is something profoundly comforting about the story of Jesus walking on water. We often read it as a miracle of power and it is that. But perhaps the greater miracle is where Jesus chose to meet His disciples. He didn’t wait on the shore and call the storm to pass. He came to them… Continue reading When the storms come

Recently a famous social media couple terminated their pregnancy due to a Down syndrome diagnosis, In their explanation, they described Down syndrome as a glitch, an error. Oscar is not a glitch. He is not a mistake, an error, or a life that needs to be justified by achievements, milestones, or abilities. He is created… Continue reading Not a glitch

There is an old naval tradition that a red thread was woven through every rope of the British Royal Navy. No matter where the rope travelled or how it was cut, that red strand remained visible - an unmistakable mark of belonging to the Crown. A single thread, running through every fibre. Constant. Impossible to… Continue reading The Red Thread

Easter Saturday is the quiet day. It’s the day after the report, after the diagnosis. After the prayer. After the hope that something would change. But nothing has changed. It is the space where we feel suspended, stuck. Not where we were, but not yet where we believe we will be. The miracle has not… Continue reading Stuck

Good Friday can feel like a day where we can’t find the right words. Words meaningful enough to respond to Jesus dying on the cross for us - the depth of love shown. But today, in the car with Oscar, I was reminded that maybe the simplest words are the most powerful. Out of nowhere… Continue reading Thank you Jesus