Monthly Archives: May 2026

Death Cafe

I saw someone die this week. This is not unusual; hospitals are places of life and death. I sometimes forget how far death is from most people’s day to day life and how difficult it can be be when it comes crashing in. This week two people, completely independently, asked me if I was still hosting Death Cafes. These are events spaces for people to come together to drink tea, eat cake and face our mortality. I’ve attended many Death Cafes and last hosted one in 2017.

Breaking the death taboo over tea, cake and candlelight

Talking about death is hard. But not talking about it can be damaging, with wishes unknown, plans never actualised, questions never answered and things left unsaid. There is so much to be gained from engaging with the finite nature of our lives. And so I’ve decided to run a series of Death Cafes again.

There will be tea. There will be cake. There will be facilitated conversation. If previous Death Cafes are anything to go by, there will be laughter, vulnerability and comfort.

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Hopeless/ful

It’s been a year since I wrote anything. Writing is an act of faith. It requires belief that engaging and interacting has meaning; that it serves a purpose. It requires hope. Hope is something I’ve struggled to hold onto over the last year; crowded out by violence, division, hate, and a pervasive feeling that everything has gone wrong.

But here I am. Writing again.

The world is arguably an even bleaker place than it was a year ago. The genocidal actions of the IDF continue; the wealth gap grows ever larger; fossil fuel companies continue to make eye watering profits, further enhanced by war; biodiversity is falling as we live through the sixth mass extinction; the chance of staying below 1.5C of warming gets ever smaller; health and social care are failing people everywhere; the basics of life are more expensive and more children are living in poverty; fascism is on the rise; and every week brings a new reason to fear an apocalypse.

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