International Women's Day

This International Women's Day I thought I'd take a moment to celebrate my sister, and by extension, of course, all my sisters around the world.

I have a younger sister. She is a kind, careful, thoughtful human being. She teaches kids. She looks after both the kids she teaches and her own kids at home. Sometimes she calls her kids,' "Buddy" and it sounds great when she says it. She talks to all children as if they are important and have things to contribute, because she clearly believes that. Sometimes, the fact that she is endlessly patient and moral, trying to work out exactly what the right thing is to do in any situation drives me nuts, because I don't have her patience or fortitude, more often, it makes me proud. Whenever I picture her, I think of her in her kitchen, in perpetual motion, preparing food, or tidying up. She always tries to make any meal, or any interaction, the best that it can be. She makes amazing chips. She is one of the cleverest people I've ever met, always incisive with her language and alert to making sure she says exactly what she means. But she's also a lot of fun. She wrinkles up her nose and raises one eyebrow in a kind of "Isn't this all nutty?" expression, when things get too heavy. She looks after my mum with a great deal of kindness. She plays a lot of games. She takes her responsibilities as an educator very seriously, and the creativity she puts into designing courses and teaching the young people in her charge to be good, responsible members of society, is a joy to behold. She can connect to strangers very quickly. Even just doing silly things like parking she'll be chatting to people, checking in on them, making sure no one feels taken advantage of, or left out. She's a great person to go on holiday with, because she's always got a nice idea about where to go or what to do, and silly joke. She dances around quite often, or hums. When she got married, quite recently, she asked me to make a speech and I did. It was a funny speech about how tough it was growing up next to her, when she is all good things - too beautiful, too clever, too kind, too funny etc but really of course, you can't be too much of any of these things, or she isn't anyway.