I am FOUR

Ok I kind of just wanted to use that as a title. Obviously, I am not four. This blog, however, has somehow managed to stay alive for four whole years and I am amazed. Four years ago today I posted my first book review (of V for Vendetta, since you ask) not really knowing what to expect from a book blog and definitely not knowing there was a whole world of book blogging out there!

When I started off I was engaged, employed in an incredibly part time capacity and recently moved 100 miles away from all my family and friends to an area I knew nothing about. Now I am married, a mother of two, about to buy a house just up the road from the place we've been living for over four years, and am still part time employed (having been full time employed in the interim) but running a business alongside many other projects!

Along the way I've met some incredible people, discovered some amazing blogs and am just generally over the moon to be part of this community. I honestly can't believe we've got this far and I still love blogging!

Highlights of the past four years have been; reading a lot of Noel Streatfeild, participating in many months of RAK (and thus meeting Hanna and Ellie!), hosting the Telling Tales Challenge for two years, joining The Classics Club, having a quote from my review (even if it was a bit of a lame one!) featured in the paperback of Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, libraries, Banned Books Week, Banned Books Week, Banned Books Week, being a Giver for World Book Night 2013, posting about the importance of bedtime stories in my life, the inception of the Ninja Book Swap, going to the Roald Dahl Museum, going to see (and hear) Neil Gaiman read Fortunately, the Milk, meeting up with Ellie, Hanna, Laura and Charlotte in Leeds (this gets bolded because really, it's the best thing on this list and we must do it again soon please!), discovering Rainbow Rowell, hunting for book benches, Nonfiction November and gaining an international penpal (hi Nahree!).

I won't get overly sentimental. I've made some amazing friends through blogging without whom my life would be much more lonely and rubbish. Thank you everyone who has ever left a comment here, and particularly those of you who have left lovely ones when I've needed them. Thanks to those I interact with on twitter and who I'm continuing to harass through the Ninja Book Swap. Thanks most of all to Ellie, Laura, Charlotte and Katie for being amazing and supportive friends to geek out about all kinds of things, book related and not, with, and thanks to Hanna for being my partner in crime and Ninja Book Swap co-founder and not hating me for sending her six or seven one sentence emails when I could have waited a day and sent it all as one.

And now I'm shutting up and heading off to plot for the next four years!