Emma Jackson

In the ebbs and flows of life, we can be the providers of help, just as much as the recipient. 31/7/23

One of the most powerful images I see this week is that photography of empty pram at train station, left there by Polish mothers, to the Ukrainian mothers flee their countries would have somewhere to put their babies. A heart-breaking and beautiful act of generosity, and a visible representation of the fact that there is no such thing as other people's children.

I’m sure over the last week, plenty of us has been thinking about our household bills, as the cost of living crisis deepens, many people are worried about energy bills, interest rates, the impact of inflation, a huge strain has been felt on scores of household finances. All of these rises have the most devastating impact on those of lowest incomes.

I don’t know about you, but I really didn’t expect yet again facing such uncertainty of Covid, increasing restrictions, the likelihood of even bigger wave coming, and plans we all having for Xmas feeling ever more fragile are yet again on shifting sands, everything not is we unexpected.

US completed the withdraw from Afghanistan, estimated 120k people have been evacuated from last 3 weeks, yet we know many thousands more are desperate needs to leave and don't have passages of safe routes out. The images on news feeds have been hard to comprehend, I felt heartbreaking watching everything unfold. Images of tiny baby been passed over razor wire at the airport to guarantee their safety is not one'll quickly forget. And more recently, image of an Afghan woman delivered her baby girl at 3000 feet on an evacuation flight to UK, the power of an image can speaks thousand words to us, and focus our attention, take our minds to an exact moment and time. It kind of allows us to imaging how it sounds like, felt like, living in print for days to come. Yet so many things binds to our attention, especially right now. We're aware of crisis and catastrophes across the world, the earthquake in Heiti, Hurricane in New Orleans, and close home we worried about Covid rates rising again, and NHS is come under pressure.

We live in a valley where my husband spent lot of his time mountain biking, where he meets his friend at car park as if aggressive crew, rocks up early to pick up fight with another crew, all puffed up in precocious, he really go for it, fighting, his reflection in a wind mirror of a car. I've been thinking about crew with their daily fighting with themselves. I feel I never care to admit, what's that phrase about the greatest enemy being ourselves, unrealistic expectations, perfectionism, self-doubt, all the stories we tell about ourselves what other people think about us.

My husband and siblings are in a process of selling their family home, the beloved mum, our kids' nanny, my lovely mother in law, passed away last spring. So the gangs are on process of packing up and clearing out her home, their first home, the home they grown up in, our children spent so much time in, birthdays, Christmas, sunny Sundays in the garden, 9 grandchildren running around as something delicious bubbling on the stove, and always time for another cup of tea. The memory deep in every room reminds us all of the love inhabited in every space in that house. Important places homes.

At midnight last night we saw the end of three days social media boycott, from athlete clubs, governance bodies, from range of sports, who joined force, as to send a clear message, that online abuse will be be tolerated. I heard someone remarks such a shame, they could not follow their favourite football club over match weekend, the chat, the photos, build up to the game. Yet, it is our collective deep shame, that our athletes and fellow citizens continue to experience racism, misogyny, abuse online spaces as well as pitch or track. It's whole unacceptable this still take place. Words can wound and scar deeply. And online abuse means the insidious creep into spaces of people's lives that are hard to escape. It can be constant. So this boycott draws attention, both from experience of sportsman and woman and the need to change. We need to believe changes are possible, and our online spaces can be transformed.

Like so many of us, I walked a lot over last year, most weeks I walk to top of the forest by our village, where an impressive tower stone look like a risky game of Jenga the higher it goes. Our kids love the thrill of can they add another one on without knock any down. And that's the tradition, isn't it? Carrying stone from bottom of hill, place at ever growing care at the top. "I'll put a stone on your stone" as the Gaelic blessing goes.