A 2022 Blog Resurrection

It feels fitting somehow that I started this blog when I was pregnant with my first child, and I resurrect it 13 years later carrying my third.

Less fitting, perhaps, that the rest of the world is divulging into Substacks and TikToks, yet I’m returning to long-form web publishing. Who knows, perhaps I’ll be seen as that trendy one who prefers vinyl over digital – only my vinyl is WordPress and a QWERTY keyboard.

(Although, having just typed the word ‘trendy’, I highly doubt that to be true).

I can pinpoint the time my blog, and life, to a degree, came crashing down – for one reason or another, in 2018. It was a combination of many many things, from an almighty vulnerability hangover following the publication of my book – turns out laying down your memoirs for all to read, as much as you want to, is not an easy thing and can require some emotional distance – to a really difficult set of personal circumstances that I found just had to be processed offline and alone. For that reason, that year and the one straight after were incredibly taxing, and it was easy to just bloody get through it without my usual digital pontification.

So it’s almost funny, looking at the optimism with which the world went into 2020 with. I’d had a new start of sorts, including a new job that involved a lot of exciting European travel (or lol did involve exciting European travel for about 8 weeks), before everything came crashing down because of the bloody pandemic.

Life changed forever that year, for all of us in one way or another, and while I’d rather not go through it again – I became an actual avid runner for about 6 months, can you believe it? A runner – I feel very lucky that the particular unexpected set of circumstances led me to where I am now.

More than two years on from the first time we heard the words ‘Covid 19’ and it now seems a privilege to have moved into a space where I have re-found the confidence, contentment, and peace in life to be able to put pen to paper (er, QWERTY keyboard to WordPress) again. It was something I used to get so much joy from, and for a few years joy really was something that was quite difficult to find.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all rainbows and cloud surfing these days, but I have two happy and healthy children (with another en route), the best husband I never ever thought I’d be lucky enough to marry, a house we own together (and with the bank a little bit…), a job and career that I’m in love with (I even got to do some of that exciting European travel recently!), and a lockdown dog who’s not actually a dog but something in between a cat and a baby. I am very hashtag-blessed with my 2022 lot.

So with that in mind – we back, baby! Staying true to the things that first brought me to writing this blog back in 2009 – food and mindless chats – this is what you’ll find here. And I can’t wait to become reacquainted with you all.