Those forearms, those ridiculously beautiful forearms.

I blame them for all of this.

Before the forearms arrived, I had built a perfectly functional life in which men were largely theoretical. I had been single for twelve years and, despite the cultural assumption that a woman alone must be waiting for someone to arrive and complete the set, I was doing absolutely fine. Better than fine, actually. I worked, travelled, raised children, accumulated cats, went to the theatre, booked hotel rooms, ate alone in restaurants and developed the sort of self-sufficiency that becomes almost architectural. My life had structure. It had rhythm. It had very little romantic chaos in it.

Then came a man with absurdly beautiful forearms and, very inconveniently, reminded me that companionship can be lovely.

This was rude of him.

Because once you remember what it feels like to have someone woven into the banal little corners of your day, silence becomes much louder. The messages about nothing. The photograph from a train window. The ridiculous observation you know only one person will understand. The “did you get home okay?” and the “look at this” and the “you’ll never guess what just happened.” None of these things are grand enough to make it into a romantic film montage, but they are the things that create intimacy. They make life feel shared.

And that, I think, is the really irritating revelation.

I am happy alone. I also want someone.

Those two things are not contradictory, although people seem determined to pretend they are. There is a strange cultural binary where a woman must either be fiercely independent and need absolutely nobody, or she must be wandering around like Jane Austen’s least fortunate heroine hoping a man with land will notice her. I reject both options. I can assemble my own furniture and still want someone to send me a stupid meme at eleven o’clock at night.

I do not need rescuing. I do not need completing. I do not need choosing.

I would, however, quite like company.

Preferably intelligent company. Funny company. Emotionally literate company. Someone who will walk around a pumpkin farm with me, tolerate my extremely strong opinions about rom-coms, understand why The Holiday is clearly superior to Love Actually, and not behave as though replying to a message is an act of wartime heroism.

This is apparently where the modern dating landscape begins to deteriorate.

My return to dating has felt less like a Nora Ephron film and more like a poorly funded behavioural science study conducted by men with Wi-Fi.

There was Sweetpea.

Sweetpea appeared after a period of communication so erratic that I had begun to wonder whether the conversation itself had been a hallucination. Then, without warning, there it was. Sweetpea.

Sweetpea?

Sir.

You cannot vanish into the wilderness and then return with a term of endearment as though no administrative incident has occurred. There should be forms. There should be a debrief. At minimum, I require minutes from the meeting where you decided silence followed by “Sweetpea” constituted a communication strategy.

It was so audaciously casual that I almost admired it.

Almost.

And then we came to Doctor Who.

Now, I am a Doctor Who person. This is not obscure information. There is a TARDIS-shaped section of my personality that has been there for most of my life, so when I mentioned seeing the TARDIS at an exhibition years ago I assumed I was discussing something safely within the realm of normal human conversation.

I was then asked whether it had actually travelled through time.

There are moments in life when your brain simply refuses to process the information it has been given because accepting it would require too much structural rearrangement.

This was one of those moments.

I looked at my phone. I looked away from my phone. I looked back at my phone in case the words had somehow altered themselves while unsupervised.

They had not.

This man is educated. Not “once completed a pub quiz” educated. Properly educated. Degrees. Multiple postgraduate degrees. The sort of academic history that would ordinarily suggest at least a passing familiarity with the distinction between science fiction and the current capabilities of terrestrial engineering.

And yet there I was, contemplating the possibility that an adult human being genuinely believed the BBC had mastered time travel and quietly deployed it for exhibition purposes.

Imagine the meeting.

“Excellent news, everyone. We have finally broken the laws of physics.”

“Extraordinary. Shall we inform NASA?”

“No, put it next to a Cyberman in Cardiff.”

This is dating now.

Not candlelit dinners. Not meaningful glances across crowded rooms. Not Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks falling in love over dial-up internet.

No.

It is me staring at WhatsApp wondering whether I now need to explain that David Tennant cannot actually regenerate either.

The maddening thing is that none of this would bother me quite so much if I had not recently remembered what good communication feels like.

That is the legacy of the forearms.

For twelve years, there was no comparison. My life was quiet and self-contained and I did not particularly notice the absence of romantic intimacy because I had forgotten the texture of it. Then someone came along and, for a while, there were messages every day. There was anticipation. There was someone at the other end of the phone who knew the context, remembered the previous chapter and understood why the completely inconsequential thing I was telling him mattered to me.

And then it ended.

What surprised me afterwards was not simply that I missed him. Sometimes I did. Sometimes, in certain moments, I still do.

What I missed just as much was movement.

The sense that something might happen.

The tiny electrical current running beneath ordinary life.

There is a particular kind of excitement in knowing another person is thinking about you somewhere else. It changes the shape of the day. The world feels fractionally more cinematic. Train journeys become scenes. Songs acquire meaning they absolutely did not ask for. A perfume becomes so entangled with one particular person that you eventually have to retire it from service because otherwise you risk being emotionally ambushed in your own bedroom.

Romance is frankly very inefficient.

Dating apps offer a synthetic version of that excitement. There is always another profile, another possibility, another little burst of dopamine when someone matches with you. For approximately seven minutes you can imagine that perhaps this is the one who will turn out to be interesting, available, emotionally articulate and capable of answering a message without entering a fugue state.

Then he asks whether the TARDIS actually time travelled.

Hope is exhausting.

And yet, despite the evidence, I still seem to possess some.

This may be my most troubling personality trait.

Because I know what I want now, and irritatingly, it is not unreasonable.

I want consistency.

I want curiosity.

I want someone who is delighted by me rather than vaguely willing to tolerate my existence.

I want someone who can say, “I’m really busy today, but I’ll message you tomorrow,” and then, in an extraordinary demonstration of advanced civilisation, actually do it.

I do not want to conduct forensic analysis of punctuation.

I do not want to spend three days wondering whether a man is overwhelmed, avoidant, busy, dead or simply incapable of operating WhatsApp.

I do not want one message a day.

I do not want breadcrumbing dressed up as a personality trait.

I do not want “I’m just bad at texting” from someone who apparently manages to communicate successfully with colleagues, friends, family, Deliveroo and the tax office.

Most importantly, I do not want to be hidden.

I have done enough shrinking in my lifetime.

I do not want the sort of relationship that can only exist privately, carefully protected from parents or friends or colleagues or whatever imagined audience might disapprove. I do not want to become somebody’s secret adventure, exciting precisely because I am kept separate from the rest of their life.

If you want me, I want you to want all of me.

The woman with the children and the cats and the internet career and the loud laugh and the opinions and the toy empire and the complicated brain.

Not a sanitised version that fits neatly into whatever space you have decided I am allowed to occupy.

Maybe this is what happens when you reach your fifties.

You stop auditioning.

You stop thinking, “I hope he likes me,” and start thinking, “Do I actually like him?”

That change sounds small, but it is seismic.

I do not want to be chosen. I want to choose.

That means I can find someone attractive and still decide he is not right for me. I can enjoy someone’s attention without allowing it to become the organising principle of my emotional life. I can miss someone without believing that missing them means I should return to them.

I can even acknowledge, with great dignity, that a man possesses spectacular forearms without allowing those forearms to override every other available piece of evidence.

Growth.

The forearms remain extremely good, obviously.

I am not going to lie for the sake of personal development.

But beautiful forearms cannot sustain a relationship.

This has been a difficult day for the forearm community.

The bigger lesson, though, is not really about dating apps or WhatsApp or postgraduate men asking questions about fictional time machines.

It is about what happened when I let someone into a life that had been closed to romantic intimacy for twelve years.

I discovered that I had not stopped wanting love.

I had simply adapted to its absence.

There is something both comforting and devastating about that.

Human beings are extraordinarily good at adaptation. We build a life around whatever remains. We learn new routes. We rearrange the furniture. We stop reaching for things that are no longer there.

Eventually, the absence itself becomes ordinary.

Then someone arrives and suddenly you remember the room used to have another door.

That is what the forearms did.

They opened the door.

The bastard.

And now I have to live with the knowledge that I would quite like someone beside me sometimes.

Not every day. God, no. I have spent too many years sleeping diagonally and controlling my own thermostat to surrender civilisation completely.

Long term, not full time.

I want a person who has their own life and wants me in it. Someone who can be deeply committed without believing that love requires constant proximity. Someone who understands that independence is not rejection and intimacy is not ownership.

I want someone whose brain makes mine light up.

Someone capable of discussing absurd things seriously and serious things without becoming absurd.

Someone who will go to the theatre, take a train, wander around Edinburgh, sit in a hotel bar, argue about films and eventually understand why I own quite so many NeeDohs.

Someone who, when something wonderful happens, is the person I instinctively want to tell.

That is the bit I miss.

Not being rescued.

Being witnessed.

There is a difference.

So I remain here, somewhere between romantic optimism and “I genuinely cannot be bothered with this shit.”

I still have my life.

A very full, ridiculous, occasionally extraordinary life.

There are four cats. There are children I adore. There are books beside the bed and trains to catch and places I have not visited yet. There is work that frequently involves me sitting in my house surrounded by squishy toys while discussing them on the internet as though this is a perfectly normal profession.

There are films to watch and essays to write and entire days that belong only to me.

I am not waiting for someone to begin my life.

My life is already happening.

I would simply quite like someone lovely to wander into it and stay.

Someone consistent.

Someone curious.

Someone capable of communicating.

Someone who understands that Doctor Who is fictional.

The bar is, at this point, in a fascinating location.

And maybe that is why I am not entirely cynical yet.

Because those ridiculously beautiful forearms, irritating though their consequences have been, reminded me of something I had almost forgotten.

Love is not necessary for a life to be meaningful.

But wanting love does not make the life you already have insufficient.

You can be complete and still make room.

You can be independent and still want to reach for someone’s hand.

You can have built an entire universe by yourself and still think it might be rather lovely if someone occasionally came over to visit.

So yes, I blame the forearms.

Those forearms.

Those ridiculously beautiful forearms.

They opened Pandora’s box, reintroduced me to longing and sent me back into a dating ecosystem where grown men may or may not believe in functional TARDIS technology.

Honestly, they had better have been worth it.

Why adults are buying toys. The rise and rise of grown-up joy

 

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

There is a doughnut with a face looking at me, and quite frankly, it is doing more for the atmosphere than another beige cushion ever could. It has no opinion on my life choices, requires no elaborate explanation of my feelings and appears delighted simply to exist. In an adulthood full of bills, disappointing news and people who mistake replying to a message for an Olympic endurance event, I find that rather refreshing.

I spend my working life talking about toys, reviewing toys and introducing people to things they did not realise they needed until they saw me enthusiastically squishing them on the internet. But my love of toys goes far beyond my job. At 52, with grown-up children and a home I get to make my own, I have given myself permission to be surrounded by cheerful things. Paddington Bear, Labubu, NeeDoh and small, inexplicably adorable objects have all found their way into my world. Joy, it turns out, does not have an upper age limit.

Why are more adults buying toys?

Adult toy collecting seems to have moved from something people sheepishly admitted to something we happily discuss, display and share. A collectible on a handbag, a plush on the sofa or a fidget toy beside the laptop barely raises an eyebrow now. Somewhere along the way, we appear to have stopped pretending that becoming a grown-up means losing every interest that cannot be filed under sensible home improvements.

There is evidence behind that shift. Circana reported that 43% of UK adults had bought a toy for themselves or another adult in 2025, based on data to July that year. That does not mean nearly half the country has a dedicated plush room, although I would support the architectural ambition. It does show that buying toys for adults is a substantial part of everyday shopping, rather than a tiny eccentric corner of it. Circana

The toy industry often calls us “kidults”, a word that sounds as though somebody in a marketing meeting needed a biscuit. I understand what it means, but I also think we can simply be adults who enjoy toys. We manage households, earn money, raise families and navigate complicated lives. We can do all of that while owning a bear in a duffle coat.

Finding pockets of joy in a grey world

My theory is that the toy renaissance has something to do with how relentlessly grey adulthood can feel. There is always something to organise, renew, pay for or worry about. Even our leisure time can become another self-improvement project, as though sitting down is only acceptable if we emerge with better posture and conversational Italian.

A cheerful toy asks very little of you. You can enjoy its colour, its expression, the way it feels in your hand or the ridiculousness of its existence. A smiling doughnut is not going to improve the economy, but it can improve the view from your chair. Some days, that is a perfectly respectable achievement.

Anyone who knows me knows that, even when I am at my saddest, I usually manage to find pockets of joy. I do not think being surrounded by toys is incidental to that. They give me small things to notice and enjoy when everything else feels heavy. Sadness and delight can occupy the same room, and sometimes delight is a very small creature with an exceptionally silly face.

You do not need children to enjoy toys

So many of us are single, child-free or living in a different chapter now that our children have grown up. There is no reason the cheerful things should leave the house just because the children have. My daughters are adults; my enthusiasm for Paddington has declined by precisely zero per cent.

There is a particular pleasure in choosing things entirely for yourself. You do not need to invent a niece, borrow a child or tell the cashier that the plush is a present. It can be yours. Your home can reflect the person who actually lives in it, including the part of you that still gets excited by a beautiful little toy.

I am increasingly fond of that freedom. If I want something colourful on a shelf because it makes me smile, that is enough of a reason. I have spent enough of adulthood being responsible. I would also like to be delighted.

NeeDoh and sensory toys for adults

NeeDoh has become a huge part of my working life, but it also belongs firmly in my personal collection. There is something deeply satisfying about picking up a squishy toy and giving your hands something to do. For me, that tactile experience can be a useful part of settling myself when I feel overwhelmed.

As an autistic person with ADHD, I notice how much the right sensory experience matters to me. Texture, resistance and the feel of a toy can all change whether I want to keep reaching for it. People have different preferences, which is why I would always choose a sensory toy for how it feels to you, rather than assuming the most viral one will automatically be your favourite.

Some days I want a satisfying squish; other days I simply enjoy looking at the colours. Neither experience needs to become a productivity strategy. Sometimes your hands want something pleasant to do while your brain has a moment.

Browse my NeeDoh and sensory toy picks on Amazon 

Paddington Bear and the comfort of childhood favourites

There are childhood characters who seem to carry a whole emotional world with them. For me, Paddington is one of those characters. That small bear, with his earnest face and enduring belief that people ought to be kind, feels like particularly good company in a world that occasionally needs reminding.

Revisiting a childhood favourite can bring a familiar pleasure into your current life. You might have a different home, a different family set-up and a considerably more intimate relationship with your electricity bill, but you can still recognise that little flicker of affection when you see a character you have loved for years.

Nostalgic toys make thoughtful gifts for adults because the connection can be so personal. The best choice is often the character someone already loves, rather than whatever happens to be at the top of a trending list. If their face lights up when they see it, you have probably understood the assignment.

Find Blind Box gifts and nostalgic favourites on Amazon 

Labubu and the pleasure of collecting

Labubu has a place in my collection because I enjoy it. That sounds almost suspiciously straightforward in a world where we are expected to justify every hobby, but I like the characters and the pleasure of having something I am excited to collect.

Collecting can create lovely little points of connection, too. You spot someone else’s favourite, compare collections or discover that another perfectly competent adult has strong feelings about a tiny face. There is something rather wonderful about finding people who understand your enthusiasm without asking you to make it more sensible first.

Of course, enjoying a collection does not mean you need every release. I want my toys to be pockets of joy, not another source of pressure. A small collection you love can be every bit as satisfying as an enormous one, and liking something is not an obligation to keep buying it.

Fugglers and Momiji: my Christmas 2026 toy predictions

If you are looking for Christmas gifts for adults who love toys, two names I am watching particularly closely are Fugglers and Momiji. These are my predictions from a life spent enthusiastically immersed in toys, rather than a guarantee that every Christmas stocking in Britain will contain one. Although I would enjoy seeing the photographs.

Fugglers have the sort of gloriously odd appeal that makes people stop scrolling. They are funny-looking plush monsters with human-like teeth, which sounds mildly alarming until you discover that mildly alarming might be exactly what you want on your sofa. I think they have plenty of potential for another wave of viral attention and a place on Christmas lists this year. fuggler.com

They also make sense as gifts for people whose taste runs towards the peculiar. Not everyone wants sweetness with a bow on it. Some of us would quite like a creature that looks as though it has opinions about the neighbours.

Momiji offers a different kind of charm. These collectible message dolls have space for a tiny handwritten message hidden in the base, which makes them feel wonderfully personal. A cheerful little figure is lovely enough; a cheerful little figure carrying a secret note from someone you love is a rather beautiful gift. Collectable Message Dolls

I think Momiji could have a big Christmas because that combination of collectibility and sentiment has so much appeal. You can choose a doll, write something that matters and give someone a small object with a much bigger feeling attached to it. I am very susceptible to that sort of thing. Put a tiny meaningful note inside something adorable and apparently I am yours.

NeeDoh is also firmly on my Christmas radar. Given the enthusiasm I see around it, I expect it to feature on plenty of wish lists. Whether your chosen version will be easy to find is another question, so I would keep an eye on reputable sellers and choose the toy you actually want, rather than paying a ridiculous price simply because everybody else is excited.

Shopping for adult toy gifts during Prime Big Deal Days

Amazon’s UK Prime Big Deal Days takes place on 6 and 7 October 2026, which makes this a useful moment to look through your Christmas gift ideas. If you are shopping for an adult collector, a sensory toy fan or someone who could use a cheerful little addition to their day, I have included places to browse my Amazon picks throughout this post. About Amazon UK

I would start with the person rather than the offer. Think about the characters they love, whether they enjoy soft toys or display pieces, and whether a squishy texture would be their idea of heaven or something they would hand straight back. A thoughtful toy gift does not have to be expensive to feel personal.

I cannot promise that the toys mentioned here will be discounted during the event, and prices and availability can change. My approach is to check the current listing, the seller and the price, then decide whether it is something I actually wanted in the first place. A sale is much more satisfying when it helps you buy something you love.

Browse my Amazon toy picks and adult gift ideas

Giving yourself permission to enjoy cheerful things

What I love most about this growing enthusiasm for toys is the permission people seem to be giving themselves. The permission to collect, to play, to revisit something familiar or to put a ridiculous little face on the shelf because seeing it makes the day feel better.

My life contains work, responsibilities and difficult feelings, just like everybody else’s. It also contains Paddington, Labubu, NeeDoh and the occasional doughnut with an expression of implausible optimism. I am glad there is room for all of them. When life feels heavy, I appreciate having small reminders that I am still capable of delight.

Perhaps that is why more adults are buying toys. We have realised that joy does not become less valuable because the thing bringing it happens to be small, colourful and available in several collectible varieties. I intend to keep finding those pockets of joy, and if one of them has a cuddly face and is currently staring at me from across the room, so much the better.

What Moving On Really Looks Like After a Relationship Ends

There are berries on the honeysuckle now, which sounds like the opening line to a very earnest novel written by a woman who owns several linen dresses and has recently moved to Provence. Unfortunately, it is just me, sitting in my garden in Newcastle eating lunch with two cats nearby and thinking far too deeply about a plant.

It is the first day of October and, rather inconveniently for the seasonal narrative, it is beautiful outside. Properly beautiful. Blue sky, sunshine, the sort of weather that makes you briefly forget that we are hurtling towards the bit of the year where it is dark at approximately 2.45pm and everyone starts talking about putting the big light on.

So I took my lunch outside.

The cats were doing their usual garden admin. Charlie was inspecting something near the fence, Angus was probably considering a crime, and Maggie was somewhere being Maggie. I sat down, looked across the garden, and noticed the honeysuckle.

And that was when my brain decided we were going to have "A Moment".

Back in spring, I spent a lot of time sitting in this garden waiting for the honeysuckle to flower. I noticed the buds appearing, then the first flowers, then more of them. At roughly the same time, something else in my life was beginning too. There were messages to wait for, plans being made, all that lovely early-stage possibility where absolutely everything feels significant because somebody has used punctuation in a way you find emotionally compelling.

Spring is very good at beginnings. Everything is showing off.

October is less bothered.

The flowers have gone now. In their place are berries. Some of the leaves are beginning to turn and the whole garden is quietly starting its annual decline into what I like to call “absolutely not my problem until March”.

And yet, sitting there today, I realised I did not feel sad.

That surprised me slightly because I have spent a frankly unreasonable amount of this year being capable of extracting emotional symbolism from almost anything. Songs. Perfume. Train stations. Scottish geography. Probably a receipt at some point. I have been one minor weather event away from writing a 2,000-word essay entitled What Drizzle Taught Me About Love.

But the honeysuckle did not make me sad.

It just made me think.

There is something odd about returning to the same place after your life has changed. The physical setting is familiar, but you are not quite the same person sitting in it. It is like visiting an old hotel room, except the hotel room is your garden and you are eating something from the fridge while a cat stares at you as though you personally invented disappointment.

I remembered sitting there months earlier, when everything felt new. And now here I was again, only the season had changed, the flowers had become berries and my life looked different.

Not worse. Just different.

I think we are terribly bad at that distinction.

We tend to treat endings as failures, particularly when it comes to relationships. If something does not last forever, there is an instinct to rewrite it. Perhaps it was wrong all along. Perhaps we should never have done it. Perhaps the entire thing was a terrible mistake and we must now burn the metaphorical photographs and emerge with a podcast.

I do not really believe that.

Some things can be good and still end.

Some people can be important and not be permanent.

Some versions of our lives can be completely real, even if we only get to inhabit them for a while.

The honeysuckle has not somehow betrayed me because it stopped flowering. I am not standing over it demanding to know why it could not maintain the same level of emotional availability it demonstrated in May. It did what honeysuckle does. It flowered. It changed. Now it has berries.

Nature is extremely relaxed about transition. Humans, meanwhile, are sending six-minute voice notes.

Maybe that is why I liked sitting there today.

Nothing needed fixing. Nothing needed explaining. There was no great revelation where I suddenly understood every decision I have ever made and became a spiritually evolved person who now owns matching ceramic bowls.

I simply noticed that something had changed and the beauty had not disappeared with it.

The garden was still lovely.

The sun was still warm.

The cats were still wandering around.

Lunch still tasted like lunch.

And my life was still here.

I think that is the bit we sometimes miss when we are trying very hard to “move on”. We imagine there is supposed to be a clean break between the person we were then and the person we are now. A point where we stop remembering. Stop caring. Stop associating things with a particular time. As though healing is some sort of emotional factory reset.

I do not want that.

I do not want to erase whole periods of my life simply because they ended.

I would rather let them become part of the landscape.

Something happened here. It mattered to me. It changed me in some ways. And now other things are happening.

That feels much healthier than pretending none of it existed.

It also feels much less exhausting.

There is only so long one woman can make everything about a relationship before even she starts thinking, Christ alive, can we discuss literally anything else?

Which is perhaps the real reason I liked the honeysuckle today.

It did not feel like a symbol of heartbreak.

It just felt like October.

A different season.

A different version of the garden.

A different version of me sitting in it.

There are berries on the honeysuckle now.

And honestly, they are rather beautiful.

Why we need more brilliant British TV shows like Sherlock and Doctor Who

 I have watched all four series of Sherlock in less than a week.

This sounds considerably less impressive when you remember there are only thirteen episodes, but those episodes are basically films, so I am going to claim it as an achievement anyway.

Sherlock recently appeared on Disney+, which was all the encouragement I needed to start again from A Study in Pink, and I had forgotten quite how extraordinarily good it is. Not good in the sense of “this is nice to have on while I scroll through my phone”. Good in the sense that I actually put my phone down.

For me, that is an accolade considerably more meaningful than a BAFTA.

I have ADHD. I work online. I have approximately nine thousand thoughts happening simultaneously at any given moment, one of my cats will inevitably require something and there is always another notification somewhere trying to persuade me that whatever is happening on my screen is more important than whatever I deliberately chose to watch.

It takes a lot to make me properly watch television.

Sherlock does.

There is something about television that demands your attention rather than politely requesting it. Television where missing thirty seconds because you opened Instagram genuinely matters. Television where the dialogue is doing something, the camera is doing something, the music is doing something and you actually want to know what happens next.

I miss that.

And perhaps more specifically, I miss this particular kind of ambitious British television.

Sherlock originally ran from 2010 to 2017, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as John Watson, and watching it again now I am struck by how confident it was. It took one of the most adapted characters in literary history and somehow made him feel completely contemporary without making Arthur Conan Doyle disappear underneath him.

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss created the series while also working on Doctor Who, which makes perfect sense when you watch the two programmes side by side. There is the same affection for huge ideas, impossible situations, clever dialogue, emotional punches and characters who are often several steps ahead of the audience.

And the performances in Sherlock are ridiculous.

Benedict Cumberbatch is brilliant. Martin Freeman is brilliant. Andrew Scott turns Moriarty into something genuinely unsettling and weirdly magnetic. Amanda Abbington is wonderful when Mary arrives and changes the chemistry completely. Una Stubbs somehow makes Mrs Hudson both comforting and absolutely not somebody you would want to underestimate.

Even when Sherlock is being completely bonkers, it commits to being completely bonkers with such confidence that you go along with it.

That, actually, might be what I miss most.

Confidence.

British television used to occasionally behave as though it had absolutely no interest in whether something travelled well internationally, could be turned into sixteen spin-offs or provided enough “content” to keep a streaming platform alive for eight consecutive fiscal quarters.

It would simply say: we have an idea. It is clever. Here are some exceptional actors and ninety minutes. Pay attention.

Obviously television has not stopped being good. There are still shows that can make me do exactly that.

Dexter: Resurrection managed it. I watched it every week rather than allowing six episodes to pile up while telling myself I would “get around to it”. A second series arrives on Paramount+ on 30 October, so apparently Dexter Morgan will once again be responsible for me having appointments with my television.

And then there is The Diplomat, which is one of the best examples of modern television remembering that intelligent people talking to one another can actually be thrilling.

Give me Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell arguing about geopolitics in a corridor and apparently I am unavailable for the next fifty minutes.

Season four arrives on Netflix on 15 October, which is excellent news for me and considerably worse news for anybody expecting me to answer messages that evening.

But there is still something particularly British about the television I am talking about.

And that inevitably brings me to Doctor Who.

Of course it does.

At the moment Doctor Who is in what I can only describe as television purgatory.

The BBC has put production of the next era out to tender, asking companies to pitch for a new multi-episode series and specials, with the next full series currently envisaged for transmission in 2028/29. The current TARDIS set has even been dismantled, which feels unnecessarily dramatic considering this is a programme where the entire central concept involves regenerating rather than dying.

Still, I am nervous.

Not because Doctor Who should remain exactly as it was. That would completely misunderstand Doctor Who.

It is supposed to change.

The lead actor changes. The companions change. The writers change. The TARDIS changes. The tone changes. Sometimes even the font changes and everybody on the internet has to spend three days having opinions about it.

That is the point.

But I desperately hope whoever gets their hands on it understands what makes it special.

For me, David Tennant's Tenth Doctor was the one I loved most for a very long time. There were Doctors afterwards who I liked, certainly, but there wasn't another incarnation who really grabbed me in quite the same way until Ncuti Gatwa.

And strangely, I think that worked precisely because Gatwa wasn't trying to be Tennant.

He felt different.

His Doctor could be joyful and vulnerable and theatrical and deeply emotional. He brought something of his own to it, which is exactly what regeneration is supposed to do.

You cannot preserve Doctor Who by embalming it.

You preserve it by understanding its DNA well enough to change it.

The same is true, perhaps, of British drama more generally.

I don't necessarily want somebody to make another Sherlock. In fact, please don't give us Sherlock: Origins, Young Mrs Hudson, The Moriarty Files and a six-part Lestrade cinematic universe because I have suffered enough.

What I want is television with the same ambition.

I want writers to be allowed to write something dense and strange and funny and emotional without somebody insisting that the audience needs everything explained three times.

I want actors being given dialogue worth performing.

I want ninety-minute episodes when a story needs ninety minutes and six episodes when a series needs six episodes.

I want programmes that assume I am watching them.

Because there is something wonderful about finding a television programme that shuts everything else up.

That is quite rare for me.

My brain usually has several tabs open even when no actual browser is involved. I can watch something while simultaneously wondering whether I replied to an email, whether I need to order cat food, whether that thing I saw earlier would make a good TikTok and why exactly I walked into the kitchen twenty minutes ago.

Then occasionally something like Sherlock comes along and my brain goes quiet.

Not empty. Quiet.

Focused.

For ninety minutes I am not half-watching while doing three other things.

I am in 221B Baker Street.

I am noticing the clues.

I am listening to the dialogue.

I am watching Martin Freeman do more acting with one tiny facial movement than most of us could manage with an entire monologue.

That is what great television can do.

Streaming has given us more television than we could possibly watch in a lifetime, and yet sometimes I wonder whether having everything available all the time has made truly unmissable television feel rarer.

There is a difference between having something to watch and wanting desperately to watch something.

I want more of the second one.

So yes, apparently my latest cultural demand is that Britain produces more ridiculously clever, beautifully acted, properly absorbing drama.

No pressure.

Until then, I have reached The Final Problem, which means I am about to run out of Sherlock again.

And frankly, that feels like a problem somebody considerably more intelligent than me ought to solve.

If We Grieve the Ending, We Miss the Middle | There She Is

There She Is | Essays on love, life and everything in between

The first time I watched Moulin Rouge was in 2003. I was 29 years old, and I fell completely, spectacularly in love with a film that tells you how it ends before the story has even properly begun.

In the opening moments, Christian, played by Ewan McGregor, sits at his typewriter and tells us that the woman he loves is dead.

There it is. No ambiguity. No opportunity to negotiate with the screenwriter. Satine is going to die, and we're going to have to watch it happen.

And yet, every single time I watch that film, I root for them.

I root for Christian and Satine as though I haven't spent the last 23 years knowing exactly how this ends. I want them to escape the Moulin Rouge. I want their ridiculous, beautiful, bohemian love story to triumph over circumstance. I want a happy ending that Baz Luhrmann has absolutely no intention of giving me.

I know she's going to die.

I fall in love with their story anyway.

And I think there's something rather extraordinary in that.

Because somewhere along the way, in real life, we've developed this peculiar habit of judging our experiences almost exclusively by their endings.

A relationship ends, and suddenly we start questioning whether it was ever what we thought it was. We revisit conversations, examine memories, look for evidence that the inevitable was always inevitable.

We ask ourselves whether we wasted our time.

But I have a question.

Why does the ending get to rewrite the middle?

The peculiar business of impermanence

The ancient Stoics had quite a lot to say about impermanence, principally because they understood something that we seem determined to forget: very little in life is ours to keep.

People change. Circumstances change. Everything we love exists within a world that is constantly moving.

Marcus Aurelius wrote extensively about the transient nature of existence. Not because he thought we shouldn't care about anything, but because understanding that things cannot last forever might encourage us to appreciate them while they're here.

And intellectually, I understand this.

Emotionally, however, I would occasionally like to have a word with Marcus Aurelius in a car park.

It's one thing to accept that everything is transitional when you're sitting with a cup of coffee reading philosophy. It's quite another when the transition involves losing something you desperately wanted to keep.

There's a wonderful cruelty to being human.

We understand that nothing is guaranteed, but we love as though it might be.

Perhaps we have to.

Don't look back

In Greek mythology, Orpheus travels into the underworld to retrieve Eurydice, the woman he loves.

He's given one condition. He can lead her back to the world of the living, but he mustn't look behind him until they've both completed the journey.

And of course, almost at the very end, he looks back.

He loses her.

I've been thinking about that story differently lately.

Not simply as a warning about doubt, but as a metaphor for what we do when something beautiful ends.

We keep looking backwards.

We examine the past so intensely that we risk losing sight of everything still happening around us.

We become so preoccupied with the moment something was taken away that we forget all the moments in which it was ours.

And I don't think that's because we're foolish.

I think it's because we desperately want the story to have made sense.

We want an explanation. A reason. A satisfying narrative arc.

Unfortunately, life is not particularly interested in providing one.

Sometimes people love each other and it isn't enough.

Sometimes something extraordinary happens and then stops happening.

Sometimes you find yourself standing in a railway station wondering how on earth you became a woman who cries on trains.

Hypothetically, obviously.

The woman who got on the train

This year, at 52, I fell in love.

I'm not going to turn this into an account of another person's life, because it isn't entirely my story to tell. But it is my experience to write about.

Before it happened, I had a perfectly functional existence.

I'd been single for years. I had my independence, my home, my work, my children, my cats. I had built a life that belonged entirely to me.

And I liked that life.

Then, quite unexpectedly, somebody arrived, and suddenly there were train journeys, hotel rooms, ridiculously long conversations and the astonishing experience of looking forward to seeing another human being quite as much as I did.

There were places I might never otherwise have visited. There were songs that acquired entirely new meanings. There was the wonderful absurdity of discovering that, after all these years, I could still experience that completely unreasonable, all-consuming excitement of falling in love.

I felt extraordinarily alive.

And then, as sometimes happens, the relationship ended.

Now, I could tell you that I immediately accepted the philosophical inevitability of impermanence, thanked the universe for the experience and returned serenely to my independent life.

But I would be lying.

There was grief. There was confusion. There was an impressive amount of thinking. There were occasions when I would quite happily have returned my entire emotional operating system to its factory settings.

And for a while, the ending threatened to become the only thing I could see.

Until I realised something.

The woman who got on those trains was real.

The happiness was real.

The love was real.

The version of myself that existed during those months wasn't a mistake simply because the circumstances that brought her into being had changed.

Grief does not have time-travel privileges.

It cannot go back and make a beautiful Tuesday afternoon less beautiful.

It cannot reach into a hotel room and erase the laughter.

It cannot tell me that I wasn't happy when I know perfectly well that I was.

The ending is entitled to its place in the story.

It is not entitled to every chapter.

Would you do it all again?

Nietzsche introduced the idea of amor fati, the love of one's fate.

It's a concept I find simultaneously beautiful and deeply irritating.

The challenge isn't simply to tolerate what happens to us, but to embrace our lives so completely that we would be willing to live them again, including the difficult parts.

Not just the extraordinary moments, but everything that came with them.

Would I choose to experience something beautiful if I knew beforehand that it would eventually hurt?

I think I would.

And I don't say that because I've developed some remarkable immunity to heartbreak. I absolutely haven't.

I say it because the alternative troubles me more.

What would happen if we only participated in experiences that came with a guarantee of permanence?

Would we ever fall in love?

Would we adopt animals knowing we'd almost certainly outlive them? Would we make friends, travel, try new things, change careers or pursue dreams that might not materialise?

Would we do anything at all?

We'd be safe, certainly.

But there's an enormous difference between a life in which nothing bad happens and a life in which something wonderful happens.

I've become increasingly suspicious of the idea that emotional safety should mean avoiding vulnerability altogether.

Perhaps the goal isn't to construct a life in which we can never be hurt.

Perhaps it's to build one in which the possibility of pain doesn't prevent us from experiencing joy.

Love is not ownership

Simone de Beauvoir wrote about love in the context of freedom, rejecting the idea that a successful relationship requires one person to surrender themselves to another.

It's a philosophy I've found particularly useful as I've got older.

I don't want a relationship in which two people become one person. That sounds logistically exhausting, for a start.

I want two complete individuals who choose each other.

Not because they need rescuing, not because their lives are somehow incomplete without the other, but because being together brings something wonderful into both their worlds.

And I don't necessarily think that has to look like the traditional version of a relationship.

I've spent enough years living independently to know that I quite like my own space. My ideal romance probably involves extraordinary adventures, beautiful conversations, a few perfect days together every month and then returning to our respective homes.

Long term, not full time.

But there's something else I've come to understand.

Love being impermanent doesn't mean we should accept anything less than we deserve while it's happening.

We can appreciate the beauty of a relationship that ended without romanticising the circumstances that made it unsustainable.

We can recognise what somebody brought into our lives while also acknowledging what we needed and didn't receive.

Gratitude and disappointment are perfectly capable of occupying the same emotional space.

I know. Inconvenient.

Humans are terribly complicated.

The bit after the credits

Something I've noticed about romantic films is that they very rarely concern themselves with the practical business of continuing to exist after the big emotional conclusion.

The music swells. Somebody delivers a devastating line. The camera pulls away.

Credits.

But real life has absolutely no respect for cinematic structure.

The following morning, the bins still need putting out. The electricity bill arrives. A cat vomits somewhere deeply inconvenient. You have work to do.

And eventually, rather unexpectedly, you find yourself laughing again.

Not because what happened has become insignificant, but because your life is considerably larger than any one experience.

This is perhaps the most important thing I've learned.

I don't have to diminish a previous happiness to make room for a future one.

I don't have to decide that something wasn't extraordinary simply because it wasn't permanent.

And I don't have to remain emotionally stationed at the ending of a story to prove that the middle mattered.

It did matter.

It still matters.

But there are other chapters.

At 52, I have no idea what the rest of my life is going to look like. I've never been 52 before, so I'm largely making this up as I go along.

I know I want more adventures. I know I want companionship. I know there are places I want to visit, experiences I want to share, and quite possibly another love story somewhere in the future.

I also know that none of it comes with guarantees.

But I'm not particularly interested in returning to an emotional flatline simply because it's predictable.

I'd rather have a life worth writing about.

Even if some of the chapters make me cry.

Truth, beauty, freedom and love

I still watch Moulin Rouge.

I still know Satine is going to die.

I still find myself hoping that, perhaps this time, Christian will find a way to save her.

But I've realised that the reason I return to that film isn't because I expect a different ending.

It's because I want to experience the middle again.

I want the music. The absurdity. The joy. The impossible romance. The spectacular collision of two people who find something extraordinary in each other, even if only for a while.

Because the tragedy isn't that Christian loved Satine and lost her.

The tragedy would have been if he'd never loved her at all.

And perhaps that's what I want to remember the next time life gives me something beautiful without promising I can keep it.

I can grieve its ending.

I can be disappointed. Angry, even. I can wish the circumstances had been different.

But I don't want to become so consumed by what I lost that I forget what I was fortunate enough to experience.

Or worse, become too frightened to experience something wonderful again.

There is still so much life to be lived.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, there's a woman I'm rather looking forward to getting to know.

There she is.

The Great NeeDoh Shortage of 2026: Where to Buy Genuine NeeDoh in the UK and What's Coming Next

Trying to find NeeDoh in stock in the UK? You're not alone. Between supply shortages, resellers, automated stock alerts and increasingly frantic collectors, buying a £6.99 squishy toy has somehow become an Olympic sport.

If you've found yourself refreshing websites, stalking TikTok Shop or wondering why a Nice Cube is being advertised for three times its retail price, welcome. I think we need to have a little chat.

For anyone new here, I'm Mandy, otherwise known in certain corners of TikTok as Mother NeeDoh. I'm a UK toy content creator who works with toy retailers and brands, including Bigjigs Toys, and spends a frankly ridiculous amount of time surrounded by squishy things.

I love NeeDoh. I love the collectors, the community and the sheer joy these little sensory toys bring people.

What I don't love is what's currently happening around stock availability.

So let's talk about it, where you can actually buy genuine NeeDoh at sensible prices, and what we can look forward to as Christmas approaches.

Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate and collaboration links. If you purchase through some of my links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend retailers and products I genuinely work with or trust.

Why is NeeDoh so difficult to find in the UK?

Firstly, demand has been extraordinary.

NeeDoh, manufactured by American toy company Schylling and distributed in the UK by Bigjigs Toys, has become one of the most sought-after sensory toy brands of 2026.

The Nice Cube, Dream Drop, Gumdrop, Niceberg and increasingly collectable Teenie ranges have developed enormous followings across social media.

We're not simply talking about children wanting the latest playground craze, either. Adults, sensory seekers and dedicated collectors are all part of the NeeDoh community.

Unfortunately, demand has created a perfect storm.

When a retailer receives a delivery, particularly of a highly sought-after product, stock can disappear within minutes.

For genuine customers, that can be incredibly frustrating. For small independent toy shops trying to manage demand fairly, it's becoming an increasingly difficult situation.

The problem with resellers and automated stock alerts

Here's where things get particularly interesting.

There are now third-party stock-monitoring services which track NeeDoh availability across multiple retailers and send automated alerts when products become available.

Some operate through services such as Telegram, allowing subscribers to receive notifications when monitored websites change their stock status.

Automated monitoring is not necessarily the same thing as automated purchasing, and not everybody using a stock alert is a reseller.

However, these systems create a real problem for retailers trying to distribute limited stock fairly.

One approach some independent shops have adopted is what we call a ghost drop.

Rather than announcing that 200 Nice Cubes will be available at 6pm on Friday, a retailer quietly adds stock without warning, hoping genuine customers browsing the website will have a reasonable opportunity to purchase.

Unfortunately, automated monitoring can detect those changes, removing much of the advantage of keeping a restock unannounced.

Then there's the secondary market.

I'm personally opposed to buying up limited stock purely to resell it at inflated prices, particularly when ordinary families and collectors are struggling to purchase products at their recommended retail price.

My advice? Please don't feed the scalpers.

There will be more NeeDoh.

Where can I buy genuine NeeDoh in the UK?

This is probably the question I get asked most frequently, so here are the places I recommend checking.

Please remember that stock changes constantly. A link being included here doesn't guarantee that products will be available when you visit.

Bigjigs Toys

SHOP NEEDOH AT BIGJIGS 

Bigjigs is the official UK distributor of NeeDoh, and I have a fantastic working relationship with Sam and the team.

They're genuinely passionate about the products and about getting them into the hands of customers.

Bigjigs has introduced purchasing restrictions during periods of exceptional demand, currently limiting orders to four units per item and one order per customer every 12 hours.

These measures are designed to give more people an opportunity to purchase.

If you're looking for genuine Schylling products, this is an excellent place to begin.

Toys Toys Toys

I recently travelled to Liverpool to work with the team at Toys Toys Toys, where I hosted several live shopping sessions.

Jane and the team are absolutely lovely, and it's wonderful to see independent retailers receiving so much support from the toy community.

Keep an eye on their TikTok Shop and live shopping events for new arrivals and available stock.

Funky Fidget Shop

Another independent retailer based in the Darlington in the northeast of England worth keeping on your radar, particularly if you enjoy sensory toys and fidgets beyond the traditional NeeDoh ranges.

SoRealistic

SHOP NEEDOH AT SOREALISTIC 

SoRealistic is another of the lovely independent UK retailers I work with, and they're definitely worth adding to your NeeDoh shopping list.

They're an authorised stockist of genuine NeeDoh products and have a dedicated collection on their website featuring everything from Nice Cubes and Dream Drops to seasonal releases and harder-to-find sensory toys.

They've also been stocking sensory products since 2024, so their range goes well beyond NeeDoh, with brands including Crazy Aaron's and SPEKS.

As with every retailer at the moment, availability can change incredibly quickly, but they're another trusted place to check when you're hunting for your next squishy addition.

My TikTok Shop

SHOP MY SHOWCASE 

This is probably the easiest way to find products I'm currently featuring.

I regularly work with toy retailers and will continue sharing NeeDoh availability, new products and restock information whenever I can.

You can also find me on my dedicated toy account, @thendtoyreviewer, where I demonstrate products so you can see what they actually look and feel like before purchasing.

One thing worth remembering is that TikTok Shop listings are provided by individual sellers. Always check who you're purchasing from rather than assuming every listing comes from the same retailer.

How to avoid fake NeeDoh

Unfortunately, counterfeit products and misleading websites are another consequence of the extraordinary demand.

Schylling has issued its own warning about websites claiming to be official NeeDoh sellers.

My advice is straightforward:

• Purchase from retailers you recognise and trust.

• Be particularly cautious with unfamiliar websites claiming to be the official NeeDoh store.

• Check the seller, not just the photograph.

• Compare prices with established UK retailers.

• Be wary of supposed rare editions that seem suspiciously easy to obtain.

You can also visit the actual manufacturer's website at schylling.com to explore genuine products.

Remember, just because a website includes the word NeeDoh in its domain doesn't automatically mean it's affiliated with Schylling.

What's coming next for NeeDoh in the UK?

Now for the exciting bit.

As we head into October, there's plenty for NeeDoh fans to look forward to, particularly with Christmas approaching.

I'm fortunate enough to work closely with people in the toy industry, so I occasionally get an early look at products before they reach UK shelves.

I will always respect confidential information and release dates, but there are already some lovely seasonal products we can talk about.

Christmas NeeDoh is coming!

The festive range includes some rather fabulous additions.

NeeDoh Cool Cane

A gloriously festive candy-cane-inspired squish, perfect for anyone who wants something a little different in their collection.

NeeDoh Polar Glow Penguin

A winter-themed penguin with a crunchy snow-like filling and glow-in-the-dark features.

NeeDoh Ginger Glowman

A gingerbread-inspired squishy with a crunchy texture and glow-in-the-dark design.

NeeDoh Advent Calendar

Perhaps one of the most anticipated NeeDoh products this Christmas, featuring 24 miniature sensory surprises.

The official calendar has already attracted considerable attention, and I would expect it to remain a particularly sought-after seasonal product.

I'm also expecting further UK arrivals throughout October, including some lovely new variations including the Nice Icicle, Nice Cream and the Peace of Cake with the Pizza, namely the Needoh Squeeza arriving in November along with some much needed restocks of common Needoh items. (I say common, at the moment even the common Needoh are rare.)

As always, expected arrival dates can change, so I'll share confirmed information when retailers make it available.

And yes, I may have had a little sneak preview of things further down the line.

That's all I'm saying for now.

Mother NeeDoh has learned the importance of keeping a secret. Occasionally.

Should you pay resale prices or wait for NeeDoh to restock?

Personally, I'd wait.

I completely understand the frustration of trying to find a particular colour, limited edition or seasonal product, especially when you're purchasing a birthday or Christmas present.

But paying significantly inflated prices encourages the very behaviour that's making these products harder to obtain.

Support independent toy retailers. Check authorised suppliers. Follow the shops you trust.

And remember that a sold-out product doesn't automatically mean it's been discontinued.

I'll keep this NeeDoh UK stock guide updated

I'll continue updating this article with useful retailer links, publicly confirmed upcoming releases and general NeeDoh news as we move through the autumn and Christmas season.

You can also follow me on TikTok for product demonstrations, new arrivals and the occasional entirely reasonable reaction to receiving a box full of squishy toys.

Because ultimately, NeeDoh should be fun.

It should be about finding a texture you love, discovering something that makes your brain happy, or simply enjoying the increasingly ridiculous number of things Schylling has managed to make squishable.

It shouldn't require a computer science degree, a stock-monitoring bot and a second mortgage to buy a Nice Cube.

Happy squishing!

Read More...

There is a small but significant difference between talking to someone on Instagram and talking to them on WhatsApp.

Instagram is still public-adjacent. It is the foyer. You are wearing shoes. There are other people milling around. At any moment either of you can wander off to look at a Reel about an unusually large cat.

WhatsApp is different.

WhatsApp is giving someone a key.

Not to the house, obviously. I’m not completely unhinged.

Just to your actual phone.

Suddenly they are there between your children, your closest friends, the group chat and the person you’ve been meaning to reply to since February.

They have crossed the digital border.

And, somehow, he crossed it.

I don’t remember there being a grand ceremony. No fanfare. No declaration that we were now Moving This Relationship To The Next Level.

We were simply talking too much.

Instagram could no longer contain us.

And then came the words:

Read more.

If you have never received a WhatsApp message so long that the application itself politely folds it away and asks whether you really want to continue, I can only assume you have never flirted with a man who has multiple degrees and opinions about almost everything.

The emotional support Scotsman had a lot of opinions.

Fortunately, so did I.

This was not a courtship conducted through “morning beautiful x” and photographs of dinner.

We talked about philosophy and feminism. Law and sexuality. Identity. Politics. Doctor Who. Films. Relationships. Books. Cats.

Sometimes all before breakfast.

There was very little small talk because neither of us appeared to understand what small talk was for.

I have always said that I flirt by downloading every fact I have ever learned directly into another person’s brain.

Apparently I had finally found someone whose response was not:

Please stop.

It was:

Interesting. Here are seventeen paragraphs in return.

My people.

Or, more specifically, my person.

At one point we discussed why he liked older women.

His answer was that they had more depth.

Which, obviously, was an excellent answer because I was an older woman and therefore perfectly willing to accept this extremely scientific conclusion.

There were less intellectual discussions too.

He once dyed his moustache because, somewhere in his mind, there existed the possibility that this might make him look like Tom Selleck.

Reader, it did not make him look like Tom Selleck.

It did, however, tell me something important.

He was ridiculous.

I like ridiculous.

Not performatively ridiculous. Not the exhausting sort of man who needs to be the funniest person at every table.

Just quietly, unexpectedly silly.

A man could be discussing jurisprudence one minute and conducting experimental moustache-based masculinity the next.

This, frankly, is catnip to me.

The messages got longer.

Then came the voice notes.

The first few times his name appeared on my screen attached to several minutes of audio, I would put my headphones in and wander around the house listening.

Sometimes I would answer immediately.

Sometimes I would have to sit with something he had said.

Sometimes I would realise halfway through my own reply that I had been talking for four minutes and had somehow moved from the original subject to Simone de Beauvoir, capitalism and whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich.

This is what flirting looks like when two people are slightly over-equipped in the brain department.

There was disagreement too.

That mattered.

I didn’t want someone who simply echoed me back to myself. I already have mirrors.

We could disagree about films, ideas, interpretations. We could go away, think about something and come back to it.

There was a pleasure in being challenged by him.

Not diminished.

Not patronised.

Challenged.

There is a difference.

I was beginning to learn the architecture of his mind.

He was beginning to learn mine.

I could sometimes predict where his argument was going before he got there.

I suspect he could do the same with me.

And perhaps that is one of the strangest forms of intimacy.

Not knowing everything about another person.

Knowing how they think.

Somewhere in those conversations Simone de Beauvoir appeared, because of course she did.

I had always loved her idea that the best kind of love is not two incomplete people desperately trying to become one whole thing.

It is two complete people.

Two freedoms.

Two people going out into the world, discovering things separately and then returning to one another bearing gifts.

Look what I found.

Look what I thought.

Look what I learned.

That made sense to me.

I didn’t want someone to complete me.

I was already complete.

Complicated, occasionally held together by caffeine and misplaced optimism, but complete.

I wanted someone who would go away and notice something peculiar on a train and immediately think:

Mandy needs to know about this.

And increasingly, that was what was happening.

A film would become a conversation.

A conversation would become an essay.

An essay would become an in-joke.

An in-joke would turn up three days later in an entirely unrelated discussion and make me laugh in the middle of Tesco.

There was a rhythm forming.

Without either of us announcing it, he had begun to occupy parts of my day.

I would see something and think of him.

A philosophical quote.

A terrible take on the internet.

A ridiculous product.

A man with an ill-advised moustache.

I would reach for my phone.

That is how these things happen, I think.

Not with violins.

With accumulation.

One more message.

One more joke.

One more you have to see this.

One more Read more.

And beneath all the intellectual showing off and ridiculousness, something else was happening.

I felt safe.

That word would become important later.

But even then, before hotel rooms and train tickets and photographs and everything that came afterwards, there was a softness underneath it all.

I didn’t feel as though I had to make myself smaller.

I didn’t have to pretend I was less intense, less interested, less opinionated.

He did not seem frightened by the amount of me.

If anything, he appeared to be wandering around opening cupboards.

What else have you got in here?

This was extremely inconvenient.

I had spent years constructing an excellent emotional fortress.

There were walls.

There was a drawbridge.

There were probably crocodiles.

I had become very good at being on my own.

And now some Scottish lunatic with a questionable moustache was standing outside lighting up my synapses and asking what I thought about existentialism.

Rude, frankly.

The drawbridge did not crash dramatically to the ground.

That would make a better story.

It lowered by inches.

A joke.

A voice note.

A conversation at an hour when sensible people were asleep.

A message long enough to require its own user interface.

Read more.

So I did.

Again.

And again.

And again.