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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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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 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 20, 2018
10 min

What’s Going On?

It’s fair to say that our levels of planning ahead have diminished somewhat since setting off. Before we left, we spent hours perusing guide books and websites, looking out for the best places to go in the first two countries. At one point, we even had our accommodation booked for the upcoming seven weeks. At the moment, we know where we’re staying for the next three days, and we’ll probably look at the guide books for our next destination while we’re on the flight. Part of i

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

May 7, 2018
8 min

Man, I Feel Like a Woman

Every time I’ve travelled before (and by that I mean more than a holiday) I’ve been on my own, or in the presence of other women. Living in China, travelling round South East Asia, in Botswana for a month, I was never with a man. We’ve just arrived in Santiago, and it’s the first time someone has advised me about my safety. I was out on my own with the baby in the sling, getting some coffee. A woman called me over and gestured to my back pocket, indicating that I shouldn’t pu

Apr 29, 2018
7 min

Wide Open Spaces

New Zealand feels enormous. It’s odd, considering that we’ve just come from a country that could fit the entire of Europe in it, to say that this diminutive pair of islands seems so much bigger. It just goes to show the impact that people have on a place. With so few people living on the south island (33% of the population of the entire country live in Auckland) there are huge spaces of land with nothing as far as you can see. No shops, office blocks, houses, farms (ok, perha

Apr 21, 2018
4 min

Stuff for YOU on the Road

I could have called this ‘Mummy Treats’ or some such nonsense, but frankly I think there are times when it is great to not consider yourself a mum, and just think about the things you want to make you feel good. After all, it’s all very well if your little darling is all set for a day at the beach but it’s far less fun if you feel like your hair is a fuzzy monstrosity and your skin resembles some of the leathery lizards you encounter in your tropical travels. So, let’s ditch

Apr 15, 2018
7 min

Managing Expectations

We’ve just got to the end of the third country in our eight-country trip. All of them (apart from the US) are places that neither of us have been before. They’re also places without malaria risk, that need no vaccinations to visit, or that have extremes of temperature, to accommodate a small baby. We wanted to make it a new experience for both of us, so it didn’t feel like we were showing each other around. For each one, I have a patchwork of expectations – colours, sounds, s

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