One year of Peaches & Peonies!
Anyway, I cannot believe that my little corner of the internet has be going for a full year. I can't work out if a pandemic was a good or bad time to start a blog.
On the plus side, it gave me plenty of time to do so and lord knows it took me WEEKS to figure out how to set up a domain and how to link platforms and all the other techy bits that got me super frustrated.
But with lots of help from Mr Poachie I got there in the end. The other benefit of writing in a pandemic was again having the time to go through my photos and write about all of my past experiences.
The negatives of starting a blog, when the country was in lockdown, was that I couldn't go anywhere! I couldn't write as often as I wanted, as I wasn't doing anything; there are only so many times I can tell you that I have gone for a walk, taken part in a zoom Pilates class and baked something else calorific that week.
Either way, I am very happy that I have started blogging. Like I have said before, I really ummed and ahhed about started a blog. I'd wanted to do it for YEARS but I was too fearful about being judged and I got pissed off with the IT side of it, so I'd always put the idea to the back of my mind.
When I first started the blog I was seeing a therapist, I was going through a divorce, been diagnosed with severe depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder.
The thing my therapist encouraged me to do was to keep a diary (which I still do) and whilst I don't tend to write about my most personal thoughts on my blog, I am sharing more about my life than I ever have done before and this has been so helpful to me.
Ever since I was a teen I always struggled to communicate with anyone about how I was feeling and could never tell anyone that I needed help. Now I feel so much more confident, assertive and more open in general, this isn't all down to having a blog but it was definitely part of the process.
I can see it now when I read back through my first posts or from my Insta captions. I used to get nervous and try to write really quickly and it would be so non descript, it was like I was just trying to get through a tick box exercise and write something to fill a gap because I had to.
Now I try to put more personality into it, I research my posts more, I try and make it informative and still inject my goofy sense of humour. Mr Poachie has also been really encouraging me to get in front of the camera; I'm so camera shy and hate most photo's of myself but I'm trying to be less of a diva about it...
In every day life I feel more confident. I used to hate talking on the phone but I suppose lockdown has forced me out of that. In team meetings, if I knew that I had to provide an update or if I wanted to ask a question my heart would race and I would gabble away and try and make a joke of things, whereas now I feel like I can say things with substance and I don't feel panicked by it.
Blogging has also been a great focus when there hasn't been much else to do. I'm not a huge TV lover (unless its Miss Marple or Rosemary & Thyme), so I like to spend my evenings writing, editing photos and creating content for the social media accounts I now manage.
Both of these opportunities to manage social media would not have happened if I hadn't started a blog. All of the other good things that have come my way via social media wouldn't have happened either. I never started a blog in the hope to receive freebies but it's definitely a bonus!
Since writing this blog I have been gifted some amazing experiences, I have been invited to places that I love to visit and photograph, I have met some wonderful people and learnt a lot. I have also had an image sold on Getty Contributor and had one of my photo's published on the front cover of a local magazine. NONE of these things would have happened if I hadn't started the blog.
I used to fuss and say the blog wasn't ready; it didn't look how I wanted it to look but Mr Poachie just told me to get on with it, just start writing and we can change as it we go. This has been the best advice as I think I might have procrastinated forever. I have really enjoyed it (minus the IT meltdowns) and it has given me such a new focus and could possibly lead to a new career.
This time last year I never would have thought that I would now be getting paid to do something that I truly love. I'm excited to see where this could lead and where I might be in 2022! (Hopefully abroad a lot more).
I think I have written around 160 blog posts? Some days I think I should just focus on writing my blog as more of a travel guide but I haven't done any travel recently to provide enough content and other days I want it to be more lifestyle focused.
In truth, it's more of an outlet for me and a place to share my many, many photo's!
Is there anything in particular you would want me to write? Leave a comment below or use the 'contact me' to share your ideas and suggestions.
Moving forward I hope to bring some more travel content (aka holibobs); I have so many trips planned! We are moving to a lovely village and I am excited for my life with Mr Poachie. Being divorced is something I had never thought would happen and it makes me sad that it did, but I am moving forward and feel positive about what's to come. I think life is short, so I try and make the most of my time doing what I love with people I truly want to spend my time with.
Thank you all of you who have been supportive and read and shared my blogs. Also for the likes and comments on Instagram, it really means the world!
Stay sassy y'all.
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