The Boy moved out yesterday… It's a weird time when your kids are launched. In the lead up to the move, we've played out the Five Tests beautifully over the past few weeks and I talk all about it in this week’s blog.

In this episode of the Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast, I catch up with the brilliant Karen McCormick, from inCharge. Karen shares her really exciting plans to build an app designed to help people get Gloriously Ordinary Lives - something I am so excited about!

So I’ve been on holiday to Kefalonia for the last 10 days. It felt like a great opportunity to reflect on the photo test from the Five Tests of Gloriously Ordinary Lives - and share my own! PS. Yes I think I will be bringing black and white kitten home next time.

I started using the words ‘Gloriously Ordinary’ when my kids were teenagers to try and explain to the various systems around them how we wanted life to look like. Not some strange version of special or different, but exactly what other young people their age might expect. When I formally launched Gloriously Ordinary Lives last year, that was the essence I wanted to keep. So, what is it for?

This week, something a little different for the Gloriously Ordinary Sundays - a vlog! I ask you to take a moment to reflect on your own lives and what mundane and heart sing has looked like for you recently.

This month I catch up with the amazing ⁠Bryony Shannon⁠ and we talk all about Test Two of Gloriously Ordinary Lives - the importance of language in health, social care and education.

I took part in a panel discussion this week where somebody made a comment about limiting the range of options a person could choose from, because that person would find the choice hard to make. That didn’t sit very easily with me and I probably gave an overly flippant response.

I’ve been thinking again about a place I call home this week. I know I had a rant about it back in February, but hopefully this is a bit less ranty and a bit more constructive. The reason I’ve been thinking is because I’m in the process of finding a new place I call home.

I’ve had a couple of conversations this week to spark this blog, and it’s about where Gloriously Ordinary Lives starts and grows from, where it takes it roots. It’s musings on inclusion, on the concept of specialism and on the power of ‘what would it take’.

I’m really excited to be talking to ⁠Angela Catley⁠ and ⁠Sian Lockwood⁠ this week about their fabulous new challenge, ⁠#WhenIGetOld⁠ Gloriously Ordinary Lives is for everyone - we’re proud to be an ally of #WhenIGetOld

I want to talk a bit this week about test four – facilitating, enabling and supporting connections, friendships, relationships, humanity. Call them what you will, this is something Serviceland really struggles with.

I’ve had such a lovely and hugely emotional week. I’ve been in Newcastle for the 40th birthday party of Skills for People, an organisation that I worked at for ten years and which probably saved my life. Please note a trigger warning for self-harm.

This week, I wanted to write a bit about the photo test - Test Three. It’s about the concept of capturing a moment in time and what it tells us about the reality of a life or situation.

Most families I know naturally get to have a break from each other - People go to work, kids go to school. Someone plays golf, someone else goes to church or to play in their local darts team…

So how can it go so terribly wrong when someone in the family needs to draw on support from social care for ‘short breaks’? How can we do something different, that pays attention to supporting good family life and things being as Gloriously Ordinary as possible?

I'm chatting with John Nicoll. John and I used to be married and together we raised the boy and the girl. This week, we’re talking all about where this thing called Gloriously Ordinary came from and why it has always been so important to us.

The concept of ordinary. Get it right and the extraordinary will take care of itself.

Today’s blog is basically a rant, for which I apologise, sort of.  It’s all about a place we call home.

This week sees the launch of Test Five for Gloriously Ordinary Lives. The Four Tests are great but, what about ‘Purpose’?

The second test for Gloriously Ordinary Lives is about the words we use. Sometimes they’re so glaringly, obviously not Gloriously Ordinary – when we talk about people as ‘cases’, as ‘complex’ or being ‘placed somewhere’. Sometimes though, it’s a bit more subtle.

On the first episode of the Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast, I'm chatting to Anna Severwright from ⁠Social Care Future⁠. Have a listen as Anna and I unpick how Social Care Future and Gloriously Ordinary Lives link.