Eleven

Today I’ve been blogging for eleven years - and I’m not quite sure where the time has gone.

As you’ll know this space has changed name in the past year, but I’m still keeping my original starting date as my ‘blog birthday’ as that’s when it all started for me back in 2013. I’m sure lots of things have changed since then too, more than I can probably remember!

Photo by Marcel Eberle on Unsplash

But as part of my blog birthday tradition, I thought I’d give it a go - so here’s eleven things that have changed for me since I started blogging:

1. Where I blog: I started off using a free Blogger blog with one of the inbuilt templates. I soon outgrew the inbuilt template though, and learnt enough html to make changes to its look and feel and feel a bit more like the Life at 139a home that I changed from back in the summer. I relatively quickly decided to move away from the Blogger platform, and to move to my own url, which I did with Squarespace. Then last summer following our house move I updated that url to the one I’m using today, so quite a journey.

2. Where I live: that’s the other big change you’ll know about already. After growing up and living in London we’ve escaped to the country. We left our house of twenty one years - 139a - and moved to Nottinghamshire. I’ve still plenty to share about our new house, and our move!

3. Where I work: again a big change, as I am no longer working having taken early retirement in 2022. But even before that I left my job of nearly thirty years in the City in 2014 taking some time out before working locally in Greenwich for six years.

4. My name! While I was working I continued to use my maiden name, but used my married name for non-work related things. That was the plan anyway, and quite often I’d forget which led to MOH regularly asking what name I was using that day! Since I’m no longer working I’m using my married name more and more, though it’s still taking some getting used to - even after sixteen years of marriage (seventeen this year) I feel I’m always surprised when I answer to my married name in the doctors!

5. What I blog about: one of the reasons for starting my blog was to share updates on the work to update our house in London, once that completed though I still found plenty to share especially visits to gardens and our own garden, again starting with the work we undertook shaping the grass and then to monthly updates. It’s almost as if it’s come a full circle now though, with a new house and plenty of projects to come.

6. Getting my craft on: back in 2013 I was a lapsed crafter having tried many crafts over the years. Life was busy and there was little time to craft back then, but now crafting is a much bigger part of time and more regularly, especially as I’ve now got a dedicated space for crafting - so different to having my craft materials across several rooms of the house (though MOH might legitimately comment that that hasn’t really changed!)

7. Blogging: it’s changed quite a lot, or perhaps I don’t have the same time or energy for blogging groups, blogging circles or blogging events - though I suspect the latter may have been scuppered initially by Covid, and then more recently by reduced budgets. However, I think that’s ok, things move on. Quite a few bloggers I got to know back in those early days have stopped writing their blog, but it’s great to still keep up with many of them. I do a lot less brand work and when I do I’m even more choosy than I was before!

8. How I use my social channels: this also relates to how blogging has changed, but also to how social media has also changed. I now rarely use X and my blog’s Facebook page has lapsed (even though I renamed it back in the summer) and I share fewer and fewer of my blog posts on my social channels. Where I previously resisted using Instagram stories, these are probably now the social channel I use the most - I think that also reflects how life, and how we use technology has also changed.

9. PoCoLo, the weekly linky I co-host: I started to co-host the linky back in 2016, and since 2019 I’ve co-hosted PoCoLo with Suzanne from Chicken Ruby. The linky itself has changed as we no longer include the Blogger Showcase element, as quite honestly we didn’t have people wanting to share information this way. As I said, things change but there is still a community of people who join in each week, and we both love to host each week.
   
   Ermm… now I’m struggling.
   
   Clearly so many things in the world around us have changed and I’d need a much longer list to cover off those. So instead I’m finishing my list with three things that haven’t changed quite so much, if at all.
   

10. Clearly MOH has been here all along, and I’m grateful for that obviously - though occasionally he still finds things out when people we know in real life ask him about posts on my blog. He really should read here more often, but he’s not much of one for things online!

11. And you, I’m grateful for everyone that reads my blog - whether you dip in every now and again, or more regularly. It really wouldn’t be the same place without you!

Thank you for being here, and for being part of my online space and community.

My top 10 posts of 2023

This year there’s been challenges putting this post together, but I think I’m there. The challenges are, obviously, my blog name change but also an update to Google Analytics earlier in the year which I knew about, but hadn’t really engaged with. But I have now, my head’s still spinning!

Anyway, it’s good to be able to carry on with my annual tradition at looking which posts from the past year which have been the most popular and those that have been around a while longer that continue to bring in the views.

But let’s start with my most popular posts from 2023, not surprisingly the first three relate to the giveaways I hosted:

1 Win a pair of tickets to BBC Gardeners' World Live on Sunday 18 June

I was proud to partner with Gardeners World to host this both this giveaway and the one for the Spring Fair, which is number three on this year’s list. It was great to go along and see the show, though as you’ll see further down in this post that brought about its own challenges.

2 Eight new cards for Spring - and a giveaway for UK postal addresses

This giveaway came about as I was sent a duplicate box of cards which the Card Boys were keen for me to share with someone who would enjoy them. And so I shared more about the box and held a giveaway and I was really pleased that one of my regular readers won them.

3 Win a pair of tickets to BBC Gardeners' World Spring Fair on Sunday 30 April

This was the first giveaway of the year, and my first time attending the Spring Fair. We had a great time at the fair and exploring Beaulieu - another first visit for me. With everything else that’s been going on this year - especially our house move - I don’t think I’ve shared as many posts from there, or our visit to the area generally, as I originally planned

4 Welcome to Bosworth Life

I’m pleased this post - where I share my new blog name and the reasoning behind it - is high on the list, especially as before we moved I had no intention of changing this space very much at all. But moving house changed all that.

We’ve done a lot since we moved in last July, and we’ve some more to do and sort out and I look forward to sharing here how we’re making our new house our home. Moving really was the right thing for us to do, so I’m glad we were able to make it happen, though it wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done!

5 Making an autumn wreath

By October I was keen to get out and meet people around Newark, and for me craft workshops and groups have provided a way to do that, and even better is that I also left with a wreath or two along the way. I’ve never had an autumn wreath before, but I’m up for having a wreath on my door all year round now.

6 Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and me

After finally getting myself to the doctors about my numb hands, doing the exercises set by the physio and not really seeing much of an improvement I was referred to a specialist. Things really started to move then after being able to take advantage of a cancellation spot - for both my initial appointment, and later for my op. It was quite a whirlwind and completely unknown, though I soon discovered quite a few people that had experienced it and some that had also had the op. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have been quite so worried and I’ll definitely have the op on my left hand when that’s offered.

7 My garden in August

As we settled in to our new house it was my garden that I shared with you first, and so it’s not a real surprise that one of those first posts has made the list. For a new build house we have a pretty established, and pretty decent, garden. There’s also so much more that we can do with it, and we have some plans, but first we’re enjoying what it does have and seeing how that works with the light and the space, and you can look forward to much more of the same this year.

8 Some of my highlights from Gardeners' World Live

This year we went up to Gardeners’ World Live for the Press Preview the day before the show opened, and it was brilliant. I mean, you get to see all the same things you would see on a show day, but with much fewer people about. In fact in the marquee it looked quite different as I hadn’t realised the aisles between exhibitors was quite so wide - the next day when they were full I would have easily believed you if you told me they’d been narrowed!

Anyway, navigating the show with a dodgy arm (the show was about two weeks after my Carpal Tunnel op!) was much easier than I expected. We travelled light and MOH carried the bags (he’s a keeper!) and we spent a good couple of days wandering around the NEC soaking up all the garden inspiration.

9 Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and me - a post-op update

A month after my operation I shared an update sharing how I’d got on including my fears ahead of the operation. The bandage was something else, they said be prepared for a large bandage - clearly I needed to do more preparation, as this wasn’t what I was expecting at all. And thankfully my fingers are less oompah-loompah like too.

Seriously though, my hand is fine. In fact it’s much better than it was before - the tingling and regular numbness are a thing of the past. If you’re down to have a CST op and are concerned, believe what people tell you, there’s really little to worry about.

10 Pepping up the grey

I’ve a lot more time to dedicate to crafts now that we’ve moved and we’ve both given up work, and that’s a good thing. Though moving house also meant I was faced with my many work in progresses (WIPs) - I’m pretty sure they’ll be more on those in another post, but needless to say I need to start working my way through them and finishing them off.

I’ve made a good start as the grey blanket which didn’t make my heart sing, is now finished - and while I didn’t entirely stick to my plan, it’s finished. In the end I only added the yellow granny squares, and I’m using the various pink, orange and red granny squares to make myself a cardigan. Er, so actually, the net number of WIPs remains the same - perhaps not the progress I thought it was initially then.

It’s interesting to see that you have also picked up and read many of my more significant posts throughout the year, 2023 was definitely a big year for me.

So onto the second list

This list is posts created at any time but viewed in 2022, the year in brackets is the year it was originally posted - and it’s often very similar to the previous year. For whatever reason these posts continue to attract views, and it’s good to see some of the old favourites remaining on the list, though there have been a few changes this year.

1. Sean Murray's Great Chelsea Garden Challenge (2017)

2. Filling our gabion baskets (2017)

3. My IKEA hack: HOL storage table to laundry basket (2015)

4. Win a pair of tickets to BBC Gardeners' World Live on Sunday 18 June (2023)

5. In the Orangery at Belton House (2022)

6. Let's talk Edwardian house decoration (2017)

7. Vibrant interiors at Belton House (2022)

8. Planting a strawberry border (2016)

9. The Chinese Streamside Garden at RHS Bridgewater (2021)

10. Storing logs in our gabion baskets (2017)

It’s good to see some of my more recent posts appearing on the list above - and my posts sharing our visits to Belton always do well, I need to get myself over there more!

Thanks for being here over the past year, and for bearing with me sharing this post which appeals to my inner nerd.

Ten

At the end of last week my blog turned 10, which seems quite unbelievable to me. And while the voracity of my posts have slowed somewhat since I first started out (and some of the very early posts are no longer viewable having moved platforms) it’s still quite a remarkable achievement, and one that I’m grateful that many of you are still here for.

Photo by Timo Müller on Unsplash

It’s another tradition of mine to mark my blog birthdays, and it seems also a tradition to deliberate about a theme for the post. I am clearly a creature of habit, so this year is no different on both counts. So I’ve decided to share ten posts from over the years which are memorable to me, whether that’s because they were great achievements, great opportunities or just because they were special to me.

I know I have been incredibly fortunate to have had (and hopefully to continue to have) some great opportunities come my way just by posting here, and I’ve met some fantastic people through this online space over the years too. This is, and I hope will continue to be, a space for me to share many things from our home and garden projects, our garden visits, my many works in progress and hopefully much, much more.

Thank you for being here, and for being part of my online space and community.

Ten for ten

Having decided to choose ten posts, I soon realised just how hard a task I’d nonchalantly set myself. So with a brief explanation the ten are:

1. Please ring the bell - our visit to Hunte’s Garden in Barbados which is I think the most inspirational and moving gardens I’ve ever visited, and it wasn’t just because of the rum! Even looking back over these photos, and the many more that I haven’t shared here, gives me all the feels.

2. My cross stitch marathon - I have many work in progress projects as you know, and this one is one that’s likely to be around for a while yet. MOH still asks what it’s going to be, and I still say ‘hopefully finished one day!’ I know I should focus on fewer projects, but where’s the fun in that, hey?

3. More bubbles in my sourdough - this one’s on the list because I regularly refer to it to make sure my brain fogged brain has remembered the recipe correctly. And yes, I make sourdough almost every week sometimes more than once a week, but I still find myself checking to make sure.

4. The one with the redecorated loo - many of you will have at some point wondered what my fascination with the decor in loos is all about. Quite honestly, I don’t know but I knew there had to be one from The Loo Series on this list, so what better than this one.

5. A map on my wall - this is one of the collaborative posts I’m sharing here, and it’s the one that really still does give the wow factor. Having a map on a curved wall was absolutely inspired, even though I wasn’t totally aware of just how well it would turn out back at the planning stage, though I’m claiming all of the credit!

6. Highlights of my Chelsea (part 2) - I’ve been fortunate to have been invited to many events and shows such as Grand Designs and Gardener’s World Live over the years, and they’ve all been brilliant. The real highlight though was when I went along to the Chelsea Flower Show on Press Day. Totally awesome, and something I hope I’m able to repeat.

7. Highlights of my Chelsea (part 1) - this is a bit of a cheat really, but I couldn’t choose between the two posts from the day, so they’re both here.

8. Circles and slate - this is one of my great achievements posts where we transformed our garden ourselves. In the end it turned out we were up against a bit of a deadline after arranging our 110th party for that summer, so we put in many hours hard work, but it was definitely worth it.

9. More than ‘just’ a lawnmower - I never knew there was so much to know about lawnmowers, but I’m glad I got the opportunity to find out on this press trip to the Viking factory in Kufstein, a town in Austria which we travelled to by coach from Munich airport. I will never forget the warmth and hospitality of the Viking and Stihl teams and the relationship which resulted in a series of posts, and I remain impressed by the knowledge and passion which goes into each of their products, which are just brilliant too.

10. 52 Cookbooks: 52 new recipes in 2014 - this series of posts was a great challenge taking place over the whole year, using a different cookbook every week. And yes, I had more than I needed to choose from so I’m minded to redo this challenge at some point, who knows maybe next year as its decennial - watch this space!