On Saturday my lovely adventure buddy Penny and I did a beautiful 7 mile walk through various green bits of London, some of which were familiar to us and some not.
We’ve walked a lot together before - mini adventures finding our own way from home to Buckingham Palace, and from Battersea Park to home.
This time we followed someone else route - a section of the Capital Ring - where there was a particular way to go and markers to help us stay on track.
I started writing a weekly reflection back in October 2022. As well as sharing them here, I created a blog page on my website where they all live.
The vision to was to create a useful resource, both for me and others. A kind of library - a place to store and structure what I was writing and learning about, for the benefit of me and anyone who wanted to access it.
Except I never put a filing system in, so it became less of a library and more of a disorganised and increasingly large pile!
If only there was a way of grouping and organising them to make them searchable. Ah, Categories and Tags - the things I’d ignored since the start…
The first half of May has mainly been about the Lake District, first on a family trip, and most recently at the Fred Whitton Challenge in Grasmere.
It’s an event that my husband has done solo for the last few years, first as a rider and most recently as an artist, but this time I went with him.
What a gift.
Time in a gorgeous location, a fun shared experience, a super friendly event with incredible community spirit, the loveliest people - plus, witnessing the true power of a support system.
I love fitting pieces together to create a picture - in all areas of life.
It’s such a joy to make sense of things and see how they come together, to join the dots, to see the clarity emerge and the wood for the trees.
I know now that taking time at the beginning to sort through the pieces is an important part of the process.
In a puzzle that’s finding the edges, grouping obvious colours, gathering things to build around. And it’s a pretty similar process in other situations too.
I know how useful it is, and I am always, always tempted to skip it, because I’m impatient to get going and want to be onto the satisfying part!
I love to read - both real books and on my Kindle, a mix of all kinds of things.
I have authors I auto buy, books that come recommended from friends or on social media, suggestions that pop up on an algorithm.
Each may sound like something I’d want to read. I might already like the author, the idea of the book, or the sound of the reviews - so how to decide which to invest the time and energy in?
If I’m not sure, and sometimes even if I am, I Try a Sample. It’s so useful to read the first pages, have a small taste, get a sense of what’s it’s about in real life.
Often it’s just as I imagined and I go onto buy it. Sometimes it’s just not my cup of tea and I don’t. And both are absolutely fine.
It’s such a gift to have tried it and know whether to say yes, no, or maybe later.
I started knitting when my first child was born, lucky to be patiently taught by a lovely older lady in a local shop.
It was super fun to make cute, small things and I found it creative and relaxing.
Over time it became less fun. As my children got bigger so did the projects, and then (when no one wanted to wear my knitting anymore!) I thought I should challenge myself with 4 needle socks in the round…
I haven’t knitted since - I took something I wanted to do and I set too big, too hard a goal. I took the joy and the sense of creativity and achievement out of it.
Until now. One ball of wool + the simplest, easiest pattern they had in the shop. Starting with something I want to do and can do :-)
It’s also how I’m approaching this year.
When I have the urge to write, it can be really tempting to wait until the idea is fully formed and perfect in my head before I put pen to paper.
My inner critic tells me that I don’t have time to work on it right now, or that I need to think about it more.
It also worries that it won’t be as good on the page as it is in my head, so there’s no point even trying.
For a long time, this meant I didn’t write anything, and all the ideas that bubbled up in me didn’t have anywhere to go. They stayed stuck inside - trapped by overthinking and under doing.
Now I give myself permission to create a messy first draft, because if the idea only exists in my head I’ll never know whether any of those worries are true.
Back in April a friend and I applied to take part in the BBC’s Race Across the World.
It was a spontaneous decision, prompted by a conversation on a very long walk, and a quick google search that showed the deadline was in a couple of days.
At first we dismissed it as a ridiculous idea! We agreed that:
It was terrible timing - perhaps at some point in the future?
It wasn’t possible, we couldn’t take 2 months off from our lives when we played so many roles for so many different people.
It was completely pointless - there was no chance of being chosen.
And then we decided to take a few steps…
When I was little, I used to love to eat chocolate biscuits from the outside in.
I would nibble around the edges and work my way to the middle. It was fun to take it in sections and break it down into its component parts, rather than crunching through the whole thing.
It’s still my favourite approach for most things!
Over the summer I’ve been listening to the Books, Beach & Beyond podcast, where all kinds of writers are interviewed about their journey to where they are now, what they write, how they write, and why they write.
I love it.
A question the hosts often ask is this one: Are you a plotter (plans out everything in detail before they start writing), or a pantser (starts with an idea and lets it unfold as they go)?
The answers vary hugely. Both types exist and are successful - there’s no right way or best way - but they definitely know which one they are.
It feels like this question is useful in so many more contexts! How do we like to approach the story of our lives? Our work? Our play?
