Tag Archives: blog

Twelve Years of Blogging: A Neglected Corner of My Heart

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April marked twelve years since I first hit the publish button on the blog.

Twelve whole years. It feels surreal even typing that. What started as a quiet little corner of the internet to share thoughts, observations, and the occasional rant has become something far more personal than I ever imagined. Yet, looking at the tumbleweeds rolling through the archives recently, you wouldn’t think it meant much at all.

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A Quiet Start to 2025

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It’s the first week of February and thank goodness… Did anybody else feel like January was the longest month ever, or was it just me? 

Despite this, 2025 has been pretty great so far. The steps that I took at the end of last year to reduce my workload and commitments have been extremely effective – so effective, in fact, that I was initially unnerved by how quickly I completed my task list each day. It took a little while to get rid of the nagging feeling that I had missed something, and I had to get out of the habit of triple checking everything just in case.

A pic at Baker Street that I took on my travels last month – if you put Gerry Rafferty on while looking at it, it looks like Sherlock is playing a tiny saxophone…

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2025: Small Steps

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Happy New Year! 

I always have mixed feelings about this time of year. On the one hand, there is excitement and hope about possibilities and potential, yet on the other, an underlying fear of the unknown. This year, however, I’m feeling a lot better than usual. 

I particularly like the start of a new year because I indulge in a lot of planning and creating lists, and I get to set up my new Bullet Journal with new goals to work towards. As I’ve aged these goals have become smaller and more realistic – I still keep my ultimate bucket list of things to see and do (which include things like visiting the Grand Canyon and seeing certain musicians in concert) – but I spend most of my time focusing on the smaller, achievable targets and goals that will make the biggest impact just by using consistent small steps. This has proven to be very effective, and I have ended each year with a sense of accomplishment.

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2024: A Year in Review

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Over the last few years I have added a ‘Memories & Highlights’ double page into my Bullet Journal. This serves as a reminder at the end of the year of all the positive things that I’ve been lucky enough to experience over the last twelve months, and is extremely helpful during times when things are tough. 

Perhaps the most challenging part was at the start of the year when we moved house, and what followed was MONTHS of individual battles with various companies including SCS and So Energy (that went on for nine months until I lost my temper and started leaving negative reviews – amazing how a 1* review on Trust Pilot suddenly makes a company pay attention). We quickly realised that neither the landlord and the property management company weren’t interested in helping too, which hasn’t been great.

However, 2024 (despite all the challenges and annoyances we’ve faced this year), has in fact been pretty great for the most part. 

The Bloke and I have again been extremely lucky to watch numerous shows at the theatre. My favourites? Book of Mormon, &Juliet, Hamilton, I Should Be So Lucky, Here & Now and Dear Evan Hansen – many of which were on my bucket list. Additionally, I got the opportunity to meet STEPS at their press launch, and I don’t think I blogged about it at the time, but I met Pete Waterman TWICE. I won’t go into detail now as this post is already going to be a lengthy one, but I was so overwhelmed by meeting him that I cried when I got home. 

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A Cracking Christmas 

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I think 2024 was the first year since I started blogging over a decade ago that I didn’t post something before Christmas. 

Yes, I was busy – December is often one of the busiest points of the year as both my clients and I take some time off over the festive season, so essentially a month’s worth of work needs to be done, approved and scheduled in advance in less than three weeks. Additionally, regardless of how organised I try to be, there are ALWAYS extra things that appear – company Christmas parties and events (the week before Christmas I was in London for two days filming several events with a client), Christmas and New Year video messages from different teams etc. I genuinely enjoy it – this time of year is always perfect for creating lots of fun and joyful content, but it doesn’t necessarily allow for personal Christmas prep time, (despite my declarations in November that this year would be different).

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Perspective: When the Bad Makes the Good Better

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The last week has been BRUTAL.

Not long ago, I was informed of a situation that would require me to be elsewhere for several weeks. This couldn’t have come at a worse time – I’m self-employed with nobody to cover me and it hit right at the start of prepping all the festive season posts for most of my social media clients. I wouldn’t be able to do much during the day and would physically be out of the house, so admin would have to be done extremely early in the morning, and then when I got home in the evening (as well as attempting to monitor a whole bunch of social media accounts if I had a few moments of free time during the day).

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A Week in Johnshaven, Scotland

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Back in August The Bloke and I took a last-minute, much-needed holiday in Scotland. We were lucky to find a lovely little cottage (that is rarely available) had a vacancy at the time where The Bloke was on annual leave, and booked it immediately – as if the universe had stepped in at a point where we really needed it.

We decided to add an extra day, staying in Falkirk overnight before we were due to check in so that we could see The Kelpies and Blackness Castle, and then stopped in at Doune Castle on the drive up the next day.

It was definitely the right decision, as it meant that we could split the 10 hour drive over two days, and saw things that had been on my travel bucket list for a while.

We found the tiny, winding road down to Johnshaven easily. There have been some changes – since the last time we visited, a bunch of houses have been built on the edge of the village which was a bit disorienting at first, and there has been the addition of a cafe and a lobster shop.

But as soon as we pulled up to the cottage, it felt like home.

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Comic Con, Old Friends and a Blogging Month

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A week ago I met up with two friends, Sacha and Helen, in London. Both of them are authors – Sacha is absolutely killing it in the indie author world and Helen’s book has just been released across the UK with One More Chapter, part of Harper Collins publishing – but we actually met through blogging nearly ten years ago. 

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A Long Overdue Holiday in Scotland

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At the end of July all of the schools had finished for the summer holidays and The Bloke was working out his remaining annual leave for the year before it resets in September. As an IT Tech he doesn’t get the same amount of holidays as the teaching staff and has to be savvy when he takes days off, so it made sense for him to take his two remaining weeks at a point where he would also get an additional few days with the Bank Holiday at the end of August. 

We started discussing the potential of going away on holiday – the last proper holiday we had was a week in New York in 2018 and we were both in desperate need of a break. Over the last year or two it has become a regular conversation, but every time we have actively looked for somewhere to go something seemingly happens that then becomes the priority, and after that particular crisis is resolved we then find ourselves back into the daily life and work routine. 

The following day, as if the universe was listening, I found a gorgeous (and more importantly, affordable) little cottage in the tiny village of Johnshaven in Scotland that was available when The Bloke was going to be off work.

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