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Read about my journey into becoming a creative freelancer, interviews and reviews with great authors, and advice on writing and creative living.

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May 17, 2020
3 min

Celebrating Amazing People #3

Ok, the gap between two and three is all you need to know about coping with online teaching and toddler management during lockdown! Better late than never. This one is inspired by the rather brilliant Simone Segouin (codename Nicole Minet. I wish I had a codename) who joined the French resistance at 17. She received an International Award from the British charity Soldiering On in 2017, to honour her part in the war. She still lives in an old people’s home in Chartres. Why Giv

Feb 1, 2020
3 min

Thickening My Skin

You may have noticed a large gap since I last wrote a blog. I certainly have. I’m currently working my way (very slowly, baby/job/rest of life permitting) through The Artist’s Way. It’s a wonderful book that is forcing me to stop and look at when I really stopped writing, stopped believing I could do it. For me, creative things have always been a hobby. A nice little thing you do on the side to make your day a bit brighter but certainly not something that should substitute ‘r

Jun 7, 2019
3 min

Becoming a Mum Made Me More Supportive of Abortion

I am woman who has a baby. She was wanted, she is loved, but it has been such hard work. There have been times that I have spiralled into despair over how much my life has changed, how tired I am. I spent a lot of time preparing and planning to have her, and even then it’s been tough. She’s wonderful, but no-one should be forced to do something this hard if they don’t want to. If you are not financially, emotionally or mentally prepared, even a little bit, to have a baby, you

Oct 22, 2018
3 min

Finding My Voice

Over the past few weeks, something strange has happened. In the tiny bubbles of time I get between work and baby, I’ve started to write again. At first, it wasn’t much. A few scenes that barely reached 300 words. Some thoughts, a memory, nothing substantial. But it was something. I opened up ‘stickies’ on my laptop. Down the right side of the screen is one giant note with all the days of the week, with enough for two months’ worth. I get to the end of the day and log how many

Sep 23, 2018
3 min

My Boring Life

On Friday evening, I went to bed at 8:20pm. Before I went to bed, I browsed through Jamie’s Fifteen Minute Meals books and ordered enough ingredients for the rest of this week. I treated myself to some ice cream and some quiet pages of my book before slipping off to sleep. It’s fair to say that things have got a little quieter since we’ve been back. My days are either spent working or looking after the baby. In between, I try to cram in as many minutes of writing as I can, al

Aug 28, 2018
3 min

Stuff

On Sunday, we finally let ourselves back in. Six months and three weeks after we locked the door behind us and set off round the world, we came home. The flat was full of echoes, of the strange feeling that other people had existed in our space for all that time. You could see it in the extra wear on the kitchen worktop, the limescale lines around the base of the taps. All those months ago… It felt strange, at first. Not that there was much time to take it all in. First, we h

Aug 22, 2018
3 min

Relentless Summer

Sadly, this is the first time I’ve missed a weekly blog post since February. Fortunately, it was due to a huge gathering in the French countryside. A meeting of cultures, generations, family and friends to herald three momentous occasions in one family over the last year. As excuses go, I think it’s a pretty good one. I don’t even have that many photos. Caught up in all the new faces, the conversations to have, the food to savour, I forgot to step back and look at how much ev

Aug 12, 2018
4 min

Recovery

This week, I’ve made several journeys. Once into London to see some friends, once to a local town for some shopping, and once to Paris. While that is hardly a new experience for me, these trips were different: I did them by myself. For those who’ve been following my adventures, a brief jaunt on a few trains and the underground hardly seems adventurous. The thing is, all this time, there was someone else to carry the extra weight. Just the two of us on the train As we would be

Aug 5, 2018
4 min

Unexpected Dangers

One of the reasons people thought we were mental to travel around the world with a baby (and there were many) was because of the perceived danger. The world is a hazardous place if you are small and inquisitive. But abroad, those risks become much higher, or at least they can seem it because they are far from home. The flights, the germs, the foreign illnesses, the dangerous creatures (yes, Australia, I’m looking at you) the sea, the swimming pools, the cars, the trains, the

Jul 29, 2018
3 min

Hanging It Up

It dangles at the end of the bed. The plastic clips rattle against the bed frame when I walk past it. The straps have yielded to the stretch of my baby’s changing size, the buckles clasped around me in snow, wind and sun. It’s been left there like a forgotten thing – the sling that we used to carry her round in every single day. Now we are home, a pram is providing her transport. It’s much easier for many reasons. We don’t have to carry the weight of her all the time, there’s

Jul 23, 2018
4 min

Back to Reality

In the week since we’ve touched down on UK soil I’ve been back to work, travelled (again) up to London and attended a book launch. It’s fair to say it hasn’t exactly been an easy transition. I was expecting the tiredness. I was expecting the excitement at seeing faces I had missed for so long. What I wasn’t expecting was an emotional surge which has left me teary over the slightest things, and a general uneasiness. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Whether it’s relaxing in t

Jul 14, 2018
5 min

Coming Home

So here we are. Twenty-three weeks, eight countries and four continents later, we’re heading home. It would have been good to coincide our arrival with a France v England final, but that might have been a little too perfect. In the last week we’ve met up with more friends and family than we have in the whole trip combined, and all of them have asked the same question – “how does it feel to be going home?” Tigger, meet Tigger. Answering that is tricky. Of course, there is some

Jul 9, 2018
5 min

In the Thick of It

With one week to go, the nature of our trip has changed a lot. We’ve gone from itinerant dwellers and lone travellers to cohabiters with a group of four others in a flat in LA for an entire week. No more quiet meals and being in bed by 9pm. We’ve been chatting around the table over food and staying up far later than is sensible with a small one. It’s official, we’re here. After our arrival, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Once we realised that not having a car in LA was like

Jul 1, 2018
6 min

Winding Down

This week marked an important event – we booked the very last accommodation we’ll need until we leave. No more trawling through listings every few days, no more comparing prices and amenities and weighing up the best option. Looking back over our trip, we’ve stayed in eighteen AirBnbs and twelve hotels. That’s quite a lot of moving around! The other significant difference from this point on is that we’ll be staying in the same place for five days, and then an entire week. Up

Jun 24, 2018
6 min

Becoming a Parent on the Road

They say it takes a village to raise a child. In our modern society, communities have dwindled and family rarely live close together. This often leaves the parenting to fall on just two people. A daunting task, at the best of times. Of course, technology offers its own solutions. There’s an app called Mush which allows you to meet up with local parents (a sort of Tinder for mums, without the swiping or the sex). Just the ticket when you’re stuck at home with a squawling infan

Jun 17, 2018
7 min

Dressing Up, Dressing Down

This week we found ourselves back in civilisation, as Mexico City was the first stopping point for our Mexican adventure. It’s the biggest city we’ve been to since Tokyo, back in the chill of February. While most of our travels seem to have revolved around countryside, national parks and beaches, cities are probably the only place that I feel self conscious about what I’m wearing. A combination of skinny jeans and hiking shoes just doesn’t scream urban chic, and the frequent

Jun 11, 2018
6 min

The Adventurous Baby

This week our baby was seven months old. As she grew inside me last year, I would never have imagined that we would see some much and travel so far in her first few months of existence. With so many changes happening to her, I was sure that she would find the constant shifting confusing and disorientating. Everyone says babies need fixed routines, so I was worried we might be putting her at a disadvantage. It turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. From time zone changes

Jun 3, 2018
5 min

Why Am I Getting Bored?

The human mind is an incredible thing. It has the capacity to render the most extreme things into something mundane. Just look out of your window, isn’t it marvellous? Maybe you think a few buildings, maybe some plants, are dull, but just think about everything behind them. The years of trial and error, of development and time that took us from a crude hut to the sophisticated living structures we live in with heating, water, toilets, everything we could possibly need under o

May 28, 2018
7 min

Decisions, Decisions

How many big decisions did you make today? Perhaps a few in relation to food, one about whether or not to go out, then a final one about when to go to bed. Forgive me, maybe I’m underestimating the hectic life you have that keeps you teetering on the brink of one vicious problem to the next, but for me, daily life is not exactly awash with options. Sure, there are small things I need to make my mind up about, but in general the big things – where I’m going to sleep, what I’m

May 13, 2018
7 min

Huh, Other People

As Satre put it, hell is other people. Although he said it in French, which probably made it more profound. As someone who lives in London, I can definitely relate to that sentiment. Waiting to get through the barriers on the tube, navigating around dawdlers on the street when I’m late (as always), or just trying to drown out the chatter of others when I’m trying to listen to a podcast or write. Since having a baby there’s a new annoyance to add to the list – when a bus arriv

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