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My daughter, Scout, is 13 years old on Sunday. And no one is more amazed than me that I managed to get her to this age physically, if not mentally, unscathed.

It’s not the thing to say, I know, but I'm going to say it anyway – I don’t always enjoy being a mother.

I didn't see the fun in changing nappies. Those first 3 years of not sleeping weren't the best years of my life, to be honest. And her tantrums around supermarkets made me want to put her in someone else’s trolley and hope they’d scan her with the rest of their shopping and take her home.

I hated making small talk in the playground with other mothers. I resented having to cut packed lunch sandwiches in a certain, special way or face World War 3.

I don't enjoy helping out with homework, attempting to solve maths equations that I had no chance of solving when I, myself, was in school, equations that I’ve got even less of a chance of solving now.

I dread parents’ evening, having to brush my hair and put on the only smart jacket I have and act all sensible. I don’t enjoy the constant drama, stress and worry that comes with a teenage girl.

But apart from all of that, being a mother is alright.

I’d like to think that, despite the list of things she could write that she has had to put up with because of me for the past 13 years, Scout thinks I’m alright, too.

I asked my favourite MILFS their opinions on being mothers.

Over and out. X

'A large part of this derives from how well crafted the characters are; Morais seems to understand that people are at their funniest when they least realise it...'  Bethan James takes a look at Joao Morais' 'accomplished, poignant and entertaining' debut short story collection, Things That Make the Heart Beat Faster for Wales Arts Review. Join us for the launch at the Roath Park pub on 11 October.  

It wasn’t so much an argument, more like a disagreement, with a guy who came up to me after a reading I did recently. I finished off on a poem about Multiple Sclerosis and how having it hasn’t changed me.

The guy didn’t say what his illness was but he went… “You are wrong. Of course being ill changes us. You are a different person now.”

I was diagnosed with MS in 2016 but I had been unwell for years and years before that. At one point I couldn’t feel the entire right half of my body and I was so tired all the time I just couldn’t do anything, even the things I enjoyed the most, like sex.

Back and fore the doctors’ surgery I went with my notebook of different symptoms – I must’ve looked like a right hypochondriac. I was sent to different specialists in different departments of the hospital until finally an MRI scan and a neurologist revealed all these scars on my brain and spinal cord. And then he went and put a name on all of those years of being ill: Multiple Sclerosis.

Cool.

So, did I walk into that neurologist’s office that afternoon as me, the person I had been for 28 years in all my glory and mischief, and was it like Stars in Their Eyes… did I suddenly walk out of that office into a puff of smoke and transform into a different person?

Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be... an emotional wreck.

Morning. Lush weather.

Parthian are sending us out on yet another exotic trip – the next date on the last polar bear on earth tour is tomorrow night at Ye Olde Murenger House, Newport, and it kicks off at 7.30PM.

Pontypridd, Cardiff, Neath, Swansea and now Newport – I’m living the dream. In all fairness, I did spend a month in Sweden a few weeks ago, so I’m not complaining.

In Newport I’m sharing the bill with Mari Ellis. I met Mari a few years ago now through the Terry Hetherington Young Writers Award. She won first prize in the competition and I won second (a scandalous decision, if you ask me).

We both won those prizes with our short stories. Mari's was about a dolphin and mine was about some old ladies exercising, so maybe that’s why she won first and I won second – everyone loves a dolphin. Old ladies sweating – not so much.

It was a long time ago anyway and I've forgiven her for snatching the prize money from my grasp, and I'm looking forward to our event, this time reading our poetry. Mari’s collection, Salacia, is available to buy here and she kindly took some time out from spending her prize money to write this piece about mental health and her poetry, especially for my blog.

Over and out.

'For me the festival began on the Friday evening, with the Poetry Showcase – an opportunity to hear from a wide range of poets, including some I’d never heard before. I was laughing out loud at Rhian Elizabeth’s poems, from her newly published book The Last Polar Bear on Earth, but equally impressed by the more subtle work in Rhys Owain Williams’ collection That Lone Ship and the surreal world of Norse mythology in Ross Cogan’s Bragr. It was also good to hear again from Elizabeth Parker, Claire Williamson and Mari Ellis Dunning, all of whom I have heard before.' ...