Since I last posted here we've been through a pandemic, I've closed a business (Ninja Book Box was a beautiful experience which taught me so much but online selling is hard and I only have finite energy. Indie Book Advent Calendars still exist, though), expanded Bookshop Crawl across the UK into a pretty full time job (although not financially, yet!), co-founded a children's literature festival and am somehow parenting a teenager and an 11 year old. Rhys and I still like each other. I still read 4-7 books at a time and go through months at a time of not finishing things. I'm still obsessed with my garden and allotment. I still love my armchair by the sea.
I've moved over to Bookshop.org for my affiliate links, and this last weekend we got back from two days at the Winchester Bookshop Crawl and at Legoland so I haven't yet managed to put away my book purchases from that (the bookshop crawl, not Legoland. That one just involved getting absolutely soaked on Pirate Falls and going on several rollercoasters) or, to be honest, the three bookshop crawls before that. I'm not spending a lot of time reading at the moment as I've been launching programmes and configuring things for volunteers meetings and generally everything is a lot busier than when the kids were tiny or even before they were born, when I was working part time and would just potter along to the library to write my blog posts. Never has a sentence made me feel so old!
It doesn't help my productivity that we've also reached both peak 'all the seeds need sowing and all the seedlings need potting on and there's no room in the shed for anything' season and peak 'lay in the hammock and read all the books about self sufficiency and gardening and dream about maybe just quitting everything and becoming some kind of farmer/hermit hybrid' season. These are not real seasons, but they are very real seasons in my life and they very much affect my ability to do the things that I'm supposed to be doing. As does posting on a blog that's been dormant for - well, if we're not counting the two posts in 2020 - 8 years.
I don't think people even read blogs anymore. Everything's much faster and shorter these days. Too many characters in a blog post! But if anyone is still out there on the old feeds, hello. I make no promises about my return, but maybe I'll write some vaguely book related ramblings here from time to time. Or maybe I won't.
Currently Reading
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing
The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard (Re-read)