Last week, this blog blew the candles out on its 12th birthday cake. Twelve years is a long time to have a blog, and although it’s been a bit, well, neglected of late, there’s a good enough reason for that – which I’ll explain shortly. Like most people, a lot of life happens in a 12-year period, and I’ve grown and evolved in that time. More recently, I’ve neglected this corner of the internet, but now I’d really like to get back to loving it and tending to it – like a garden, but with words and nice pictures of things we’ve done, places we’ve been, and things we’ve eaten. It’s time to start again.

When I started this blog in 2013, it was a space for me to empty my head of a million worries. I was recovering from two back surgeries, which left me with chronic pain and the inability to pick my toddler up and twirl him around in the air. I had to leave my job in the NHS because I was in such a poor state, mentally and physically, that I was unable to function beyond being a mum for a number of years.

HodgePodgeDays grew into a fun way to earn a few pounds and to give my son experiences we wouldn’t normally have had. We had an absolute blast, and one of the reasons I’ve kept this fairly dormant blog ticking over was because it holds so many special memories for us.

Then my dad died in 2016, and things both fell apart and came into sharp focus. Something needed to change. I was broken from losing him, but it showed me life was too short, and I needed to sort myself out. Slowly, I grew physically stronger. I found the courage to join a gym and begin some physical rehab. I went to therapy and managed to sort my head out quite a bit too.

In 2019, I separated from my husband. We ended up sharing the marital home until November 2024. These were not easy years. There was the pandemic, I had 18 months of cancer scares, and my mum – bless her – got cancer too, which she fought until she passed away earlier this year. It’s been rough.

Sometime during the divorce, I lost my voice. I didn’t feel like I had the energy to blog anymore, so I took a break. It was only supposed to be for a few months, but it stuck. Every time I sat down to write, there was nothing. I don’t think I’ve been depressed, but all of my energy for the last few years has gone into survival. Yes, I’ve somewhat glossed over most of the awful things that have happened over the last six years, but I don’t know how to articulate them without it becoming 1001 Reasons Why I’m Sad.

I know there are some people who would enjoy the 1001 reasons, but it’s time for me to shut the door on those times and look to the future. I have a lovely little terraced house that’s mine – all mine. I have the most incredible, kind, loving teenager who still enjoys hanging out and doing fun things with me. I have amazing friends who’ve stood by me throughout, and I have a new partner who is supportive of my blog and keen for me to start filling it up again with recipes, days out, fun things we’ve done – and just more joyful words than he’s heard from me in a while.

So here I am, with a blank sheet of paper in front of me. A blank canvas. A new start. I’m not sure what I’m going to write about – if you’ve got any suggestions, let me know. All I know is, I want to get back into it. I’m feeling the embers of my love of baking coming back to life, and my son and I have been on a few gentle adventures recently that I’d love to tell you about – if you’re interested.

Thank you for reading this far. Thank you for your patience and the kindness you’ve shown me. It’s good to be back, or at least lurking in the doorway hoping to return properly soon.

Back in January I wrote a little update on why I’ve been quieter of late. I was hoping for a relatively peaceful year, but life had different plans for me.

I’ve been wrestling with the wonderful will they/wont they mystery of trying to buy a house in England. I have no idea why it’s so difficult, but it is and I’m hoping to complete that purchase in the next week or so. The house does need lots more work than I first thought, I need a new kitchen and bathroom and the whole house needs painting and new flooring throughout. No small task list there.

My big, BIG update is my Mum died on 28th February, she had been very poorly for a long time, she’d been so bloody brave through everything and ultimately had a pretty good death, if such a thing is possible. It has really knocked me for six, even if you’re expecting these things, you can’t always predict or plan for how the emotions will hit you. It’s still incredibly early days, and we’ve not even had her funeral yet, but I can say, I miss my Mum so much and I’m quite a bit heartbroken by it all.

I’m limping through my last couple of days of work before I’m taking compassionate leave, but my plan is to very much go to bed, watch sad films and cry a lot and try and release some of those big feelings I’ve been bottling up.

I am so blessed by wonderful friends and family who have all stepped up with love for me. My partner, who ordinarily lives in Birmingham, drove straight up to support me, and that’s been brilliant, but I have three days on my own from tomorrow and I plan to fall apart and rebuild myself, and then we brace ourselves for Mum’s funeral next week.

I’m firmly in that weird numb fallow period, where I don’t really know how to feel or how to process my emotions. I know almost everyone goes through this at some point too. I’ve cried a bit, but not enough, not yet. I think I’ve been holding myself together until I can step away from work for a few days and my son will be with his dad, so I can fall apart a bit and not worry about freaking him out too much with crying or whatever.

The last, I don’t know, five years have been a lot of sitting on my emotions, squashing them down and minimising them, because if I let them out, I might start howling and never stop. I sometimes feel if I let them out, they’d all explode everywhere and it would be like trying to stuff a very reluctant Jack back in its box.

When I look back at the last five years and all I’ve lived through, it seems to me a bit insane that I’m still standing and still rolling with the punches life continues to rain down on me.

There was the end of a 20 year marriage, living with my ex who disliked me, bringing up a magnificent but neurodiverse son, a new job, a different new job, and then another new job, covid bloody covid, a lockdown cancer scare for me, which was “yes I have cancer/oh no I don’t” for the best part of 18 months (which was hell), the four year long divorce process, death of my step-dad, being made redundant, Mum being poorly for two and a half years, chronic pain, perimenopause, supporting my new partner through redundancy x2, moving house, renting a flat, trying to buy another house. Anxiety, stress, and I’m pretty certain I have ADHD too.

It’s a lot. Any one of those things is considered a stressful thing, but to live through that all and squash it all in to a five year period. I need a break. I need life to stop hurling things at me for, I don’t know, six months or so, and I need to rest, mentally and physically. I’m tired.

I’m tired and I’m sad. In the weeks before my mum died, we had some pretty deep and meaningful chats. I didn’t tell her about everything that had gone on, because that would have upset her, but I needed her to know that I was doing ok and I’d be ok.

In a matter of days I will hopefully own a house again, and she was so desperate for me to have roots of my own. She knew I had good people around me to support me, through the good and the bad things. She really wanted to see my new house and to see me settled, she didn’t quite get there, but I know she’ll be with me in spirit.

I’ve been really proud of me, I’ve been doing great on my own, loving life in my flat and planning a future. I know that she was also proud of me and relieved that I was doing well. I am so sad she won’t get to be with me and share the next few months, but I’m so glad we had some time together. I’m glad we tackled a few bucket list things and I’m glad she’s at peace now.

I don’t know how to finish this. Losing a Mum is something pretty much everyone has to experience in life, it throws up a whole host of complex feelings and emotions, and I’ve barely dipped my toe into those waters yet.

Anyway, thank you for reading this far. One of the more recent feelings I’ve been having is a desire to get back into blogging more often, so when the dust settles a bit on my life, I hope to get back into writing again and sharing some lighter, brighter things with you once more.

Thanks for sticking with me, I appreciate it. Xx

Once upon a time I used to write five blog posts a week, sometimes more. These days life has somewhat overtaken me and now I manage it maybe 5 times a year. If you’re reading this, thanks for sticking with me. I appreciate you.

I’ve been quiet the last few years for many reasons, not least I was in the middle of a not as fun as you might expect divorce, with all of the accompanying joys of selling the family home and moving my life and 50% of my son to a new flat. It’s been both stressful and heartbreaking and with all that going on, I just didn’t feel like I had any spare words to share on my blog.

Despite all of that, I find myself reflecting on my new life, it’s now two months down the road from packing my furniture into temporary storage and moving into a flat of my own. I love it here, I really love it. It’s temporary for six months while I complete the purchase of a new little house for me and my boy and our dog, but I’ve never lived anywhere where I’ve felt so content.

The flat is so peaceful, it’s safe and secure, it’s mine, or as much mine as a temporary rental place can be. I love that when the day is done, I can cosy up in bed with a film and a good brew and all I can hear is the very distant rumble of traffic. I love that my friends are able to visit now, there’s not much room for a barn dance, but a few friends for wine and nibbles is very much on the agenda after being unable to do that for so long.

Work and the people at work have been amazing, with several of them pitching up and helping physically move me to my new life. They propped me up when I was in a pretty dark place and they continue to love and support me, and take me for drinks to make sure I’m not alone or lonely.

I get to keep my boy every other week. He is the thing that lights me up inside. We are finding our feet in our new world, but he seems to have adapted really well and we have a lovely little routine worked out. I don’t want to talk about him too much in this, but he’s awesome and amazes me every day, and he’s so helpful now.

My friends, family and my new partner have been brilliant, supporting me every step and helping with practical things and well as emotional support. They’ve taken boot loads of things to charity shops and lugged a hundred boxes up three flights of stairs for me. At times like these you really see who steps up for you and who really does love you, it’s such a blessing knowing that if I fall, I’ve got so many people racing to pick me up.

For the first time in a long time I feel happy and content. I’m not in fear of anything, I have my own space, and my own peace. My money (after bills, obviously) is my own and I can spend it how I wish, and I’m spending it building a collection of Portmeirion pottery, which gives me so much pleasure.

I am really excited about the future, about buying my new house and decorating it ways which will please me. I want to make a lovely welcoming home for my son, so he feels he can bring people home too.

2024 was a tough year with an awful lot of change and some sadness. 2025 will be tough in different ways, but I’m feeling so good about my future. If I can continue with this level of contentment, I will be very happy with that.

This was a very long way for me to say, sorry I’ve been quiet, I didn’t know what to say, but now I’m on the other side of things, I’m still probably not going to say much about it. But look at me now, standing tall, standing straight and stepping into my power. Just watch me go!

My son was born in 2010. He was born six months into a new Conservative government under David Cameron. His whole life has so far been lived under Tory rule. He knows nothing else.

When I was pregnant with him I had a good job in the NHS. I’d worked my way up from office temp into hospital management. NHS budgets were tight and I’d often bring stationery in from home, our priority was patient care, getting people seen and sorted as quickly as we could. The hospital was clean, well maintained and the staff and patients were largely very happy with how things were.

In 2013, I left the NHS due to a spinal injury and became self employed. By the time I left, the cracks were starting to show, former colleagues were leaving, waiting lists for clinics were growing, and the brilliant clinicians and nurses I worked with were starting to struggle to manage with ever tighter budgets and fewer resources.

When my son was a baby, we were encouraged to attend our local and newly built Sure Start Centre. It was a place where Health Visitors would hold weighing clinics, you could go to stay and play, get breastfeeding support and find other local mums to make friends with. By the time my son was 3, the centre had been handed over to a local charity and was no longer the parental support lifeline it once was.

As part of the round of toddler activities we went to each week, we were regulars at the library, joining in with toddler story time, reading books in the children’s section and enjoying meeting other parents and small children there. In Manchester where we live, library services have been slashed since 2010, and our local library, though still open and thriving, had to cut back on what it could offer, including toddler story times. That was a sad day.

Aged 4 my son started school, joining the nursery and subsequently got a place in Reception. It was a small church school, again run on a small budget and parents and staff did their best to raise funds for all the little extras. It was a good school, a great school, but in order to survive it joined an Academy Trust, which is what many schools have been forced into since 2010.

At school it became clear that my son had some learning disabilities, and so the school did its best for him, arranging for various assessments to be carried out and putting additional support in place for him. The SEN team did their best, but CAMHS is chronically underfunded and massively stretched, and it took 7 years to get an appointment and ultimately a diagnosis for him, which enabled him to get the appropriate support he needed. During this time the school had to find the money for his support within their own budget as without an ECHP the local authority won’t pay for any costs.

From when he was born I’ve taken my son to all the local parks, visited playgrounds, explored the wooded areas where nature thrives, chased each other through woodlands and gone pond dipping. Since 2010 local authority spending on the upkeep of our local parks has been cut to the bone. Areas have been fenced off from the public, playgrounds not maintained and then closed, tennis courts locked and left to rot. Litter piles up, anti social behaviour is rife, I can’t relax if my son, now 13 goes to the park by himself as every week a teenager gets assaulted there and one day it could be him.

Like libraries, local leisure facilities have been cut. We’ve lost swimming pools and running tracks, and sports fields have been sold to developers. Each year the sporting, leisure and learning opportunities for my son become fewer and fewer.

And I now work in Adult Social Care, and I can’t begin to tell you how being chronically underfunded, understaffed and undermined by this government is doing incredible harm to the most vulnerable adults in society. That’s an essay for another time, perhaps.

In his 13, nearly 14 years on this planet, my boy has seen an NHS brought to its knees, he’s suffered due to a 7 year wait for his learning disabilities to be diagnosed, which ultimately impacts his education. He’s watched local services, which were set up to support him and children like him be decimated. His local parks and leisure facilities have been closed or neglected and that’s before we even start to think about the impact of covid on his generation.

When he wakes up on 5th July, I hope he’s waking up to a brighter future, and a new dawn. I vividly remember the May 1997 General Election, and how energised and exciting the whole country felt. I hope he gets to experience that buzz too. As they said way back then, things can only get better, and I really hope they do.