In news that surprises absolutely nobody, I’ve gone another year where I’ve barely blogged.
I realised earlier this year that it’s not for lack of things to talk about – christ, this year has had some moments – but rather this feeling that every post must be polished, have an accompanying featured image, have the right balance of insight and wit, etc.
Absolute nonsense rules that I made for myself that make no sense as a blogger who doesn’t have ads, sponsors, etc.
It’s not the first time I’ve had this realisation & tbh I’m sure I’ve talked about it before, but it was looking back through some super old posts the other day that made me realise how much that unnecessary rule setting changed me as a blogger. Not that I’m saying my old material was stellar – it definitely wasn’t – but it recorded memories and moments and things that I refer back to in a way that I genuinely miss. I feel like some of my longest, most polished posts say absolutely nothing despite being 1000 words long.
This year has given me moments that I should have poured my heart out over, events that writing about would have been ‘therapy’, but instead I went “head down, plod on”. Didn’t want to bore people, didn’t want to invade others’ privacy, didn’t want to ruffle feathers. When did I become that person?
There’s not really a point to this post. I will likely hit publish and then not write again for 6 months. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a smidgen of a chance that one pointless ramble of a brain dump will inspire another and I’ll go back to blogging – to actually journaling – in a way that works for me.
We’ll see.
If you read my last post, you’ll know that I’ve been thinking about doing the “75HARD” social media challenge for a while, but have been put off by the creator’s sketchy opinions and general persona (that’s basically the gist of the previous post, no need to read it now) I went on to Instagram earlier… read full entry »
I’ve been thinking about doing the 75HARD challenge. If you’re not familiar with 75HARD, it’s a fitness challenge that first did the rounds years ago and has had a bit of a resurgence this year. The rules stipulate that every day, you must: This isn’t a new thing, I’ve considered it several times, and even… read full entry »
I am just over a week out from Newport marathon. It should be the ”finisher”, to round off one of my 40 before forty goals. It’s a compromise on “Run a marathon in every major UK city” (because it turns out many major UK cities don’t have marathons) in which I decided I would run… read full entry »
Alright, simmer down, I know I’m not really a “CEO” because I don’t have a board of directors or a c-suite or anything like that, but “day in the life of an autistic freelance web developer turned LTD company managing director” as a title was just ridiculous. Work with me here guys. I’m writing this… read full entry »
I was umming and ahhing about writing a 2024 review lookback style post. I didn’t want it to end up a rehash of all the shitty bits, which these things inevitably end up being, but at the same time there’s no denying that some of the things that happened in 2024 had Consequences. Fundamentally, the… read full entry »
I recently entered the Shropshire Shufflers’ Severn Bridges 10k in Shrewsbury (after a little bit of a kerfuffle where it wouldn’t accept my affiliated club name) and ran with Gaz to celebrate his birthday. Never expected Gaz to choose a 10k to as a birthday celebration and yet here we are; I like to think… read full entry »
I have to confess that I’ve never been much interested in watching sports. Odd perhaps, for someone who participates and competes in three separate disciplines, but – aside from catching the odd snippet of a big Euros game or highlights of the Olympics shared on social media – watching other people ‘play’ has just never… read full entry »
Last week I successfully climbed Scafell Pike, England’s highest peak, as part of item 3 on my 40 things before I’m forty challenge. I’ve been fascinated with the idea of climbing mountains since I saw a talk by Ed Viesturs (first American to climb all 14 of the “eight-thousander” mountains, and the 5th person to… read full entry »
I travelled to Turin, Italy for WordCamp Europe 2024 with Gaz last month. This was the first time we’d spent any meaningful amount of time together since our separation – not counting hourly taekwon-do lessons – and so I thought was going to be interesting. Turns out it was fairly uneventful, insomuch that it was… read full entry »
