2025-11-03 – News – www.theguardian.com
When my son was growing up, his school recorder was the bane of my life. Now it’s what I reach for at the end of a hard day, rather than a glass of wine
I’m like a coiled spring after work. Shoulders tense, breath fast and shallow. Usually the sound of my laptop lid slamming shut would be followed by the squeak of a cork pulled from a bottle of red, the wine hastily sploshed into a glass, that first mouthful putting a much-needed full stop on the working day.
Then, a few months ago, I came across my now-adult son’s old school recorder in the attic. I idly blew into it, immediately transported back to the days it was the bane of my life – his daily practice a violent assault on my eardrums, the piercing shriek still reverberating through my head hours after he had gone to bed.
