Sophie Lee's Blog
Welcome to 2020 and to the world of slhippocampus!

The new decade has dawned dramatically, trailing the carcasses of climate change related devastation in its wake, whilst simultaneously ushering in diplomatic catastrophes, threats of imminent violence, blundering despots, uprisings and nail-bitingly long-awaited court cases. How is this a welcoming introduction to my website, you ask? Well, this year I aim to soothe you with my random, rambling observations of modern life and I’ll throw in a sprinkling of minutiae to provide a brief respite from the madness unfolding around us.



I’m currently writing some new fiction so anything novel or short related is as thrilling to me as a… I dunno, a pair of box-fresh Todds are to someone by the name of Tarquin who is on his way to Tramps following a shooting party.



Please feel free to congratulate me now for not mentioning Brexit thus far. I think the national obsession here will wane slightly under Let’s Get Brexit Done Boris so that we may finally focus on the many other pressing matters that require our thought and attention. Of course, I could be completely wrong, but that will still give me something to write to you about, when they can no longer get urgent pharmaceuticals across the European borders and I end up in hospital. It’ll be jolly. Promise!

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I look forward to spending 2020 with you and don’t worry, everything will be hippocampus.

Sophie
  1. 28 December 2021

    July 1st

    We’ve finally made it home. It is our Great Reward for enduring London’s interminable Winter Lockdown, a shapeless blob of despair punctuated by muddy walks on the Heath. Here now in, or should I say, above, Pitt Street, I can hear Sydney’s Town Hall clock and the call of a magpie flying past our very own bird’s nest on the fifty something floor. Twenty-four hours is a long time in a paper face mask and I don’t recommend the curry option for dinner. It will haunt you. I’d forgotten quite how long the flight was, having flown precisely nowhere since December 2019 thanks to a Bat Out Of Wuhan. On this occasion, luck was with us and miraculously, on the 28th of June, we had permission to fly. Cue frenzied packing, paperwork, PCRs, passenger locator forms, temperature checks, holding pens, queues and eerily quiet airport terminals. When we […]


  2. 31 December 2020

    A little stream of consciousness from my study on NYE where I’ve been sitting listening to that particular cold silence-y hum typical of this time of year. The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve has been loooong and seemed to consist of about four Saturdays and then seven Mondays with an additional extra long Sunday afternoon, many of these elasticated moments of bent time have been grey and muddy, punctuated only by alarming breaking news items. It’s a grim time, it’s a pisser, it’s a time to hunker down and dig deep and find the resilience and to celebrate those optimistic glimmers on our horizons.

    I’m sorry to whinge. I promise to cherish the linings (you know, the silver ones everyone keeps referring to ad nauseam, me included) and I vow to spread light and good cheer, and to boost the ‘figgy prozac’ as suggested hilariously in a NYT […]


  3. 27 November 2020

    The egregious beast that is 2020 has nearly huffed and puffed her way out of our lives forever. I long to see her distant butt cheeks on the horizon next month, as she permanently fades from view. I don’t know if you feel the same, but it’s as though this series of lockdown restrictions and pandemic shenanigans have a subtly corrosive effect on the soul. I’m rusting from within.  As for my personality I’m now Mrs One-note.  

    Wake up, make a variety of breakfasts in my imaginary café (named Freudian Sips) sit at my desk for five hours, walk the dog, spend a few more hours with my immediate family (my face your face my face your face), cook, clean, watch tv, binge read, eat biscuits, go to bed, tackle insomnia, wake up, start over. Now the bright spot that was Bake Off has had its finale of to die […]