Blogging Like It's 2000

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Blogging in 2015 is a funny beast. When I began, in March 2000, there were an awful lot more personal blogs than any other kind. Nowadays, it's all about being a Lifestyle blog, or a Fashion blog or a M(o)ummy Blog or a whatever the hell blog. And I get it. Blogs are big business now, and how can you make money unless you're specific about your audience and what you offer them, but I miss the old personal blogs.

I miss writing a personal blog.

I miss writing.

I've tried so many times over the last few years to start blogging again, even creating separate blogs, but the truth is that I don't want to be limited by writing about just the one thing. I don't want a knitting blog, or a mummy blog, or a professional design blog, or a running blog, or a stationery blog, or a craft blog, or a nail blog. I just want a me blog.

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to write. About whatever moves me, and not worry about audience or social media strategies or following any of what seem like the million rules that have sprung up about how to blog.

Why now? Well, I was a bit inspired by what Norm and Neil wrote this week about side projects, and accountability.

So here goes.

Not in London Anymore, Toto

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After 12 years and 26 days of living the London life, I took a deep breath and moved outside the M25.

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The commute is longer, but though I loved living in East Dulwich for the last 5 years, this feels better. The sky is bigger, the grass is greener (and there's a lot more of it, almost everywhere I look) and we're weeks away from having a home to call our own.

We're beginning to put down roots and I can feel my wings beginning to uncurl.

Some Things I Learned in 2011

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That even if you want to be pregnant and have actively been trying to get pregnant, there will still be a moment when you look at the positive test and think "Holy SHIT! I'm pregnant!" and your knees will go weak and you'll panic a bit. That my body, which has failed me so much and so often in the past, can conceive, carry to term and nourish a child. Not effortlessly, by any stretch of the imagination, but it worked, and it is continuing to work, and this astonishes me daily.

That really good friends can be found in places you don't expect, and that people you thought were friends can disappear from your life with very little warning.

That everything washes.

That making pastry isn't as scary as it seems.

That there's a very good reason that pregnancy takes so damn long, and even then, it isn't nearly long enough to adjust to the culture shock that is being a first-time parent.

That quality really is better than quantity in almost everything.