Where’ve you been?

16 Sep Where’ve you been?

Back in January 2021, we were in the middle of lockdown number three and life felt like the walls were closing in. I was mostly at home, trying to stay creative and keep my business afloat, while dreaming about all the places I wanted to go when we were finally allowed out again.

So I made this video, The Places I’ll Go. A sort of poem about all the things I was longing to do and see.

That video sparked something in me. This growing feeling of, is this really it? What else is out there? What’s next? Where would we go if anything was possible?

Alongside everything happening in the world, I was also right in the middle of perimenopause and trying to understand what on earth was happening to me. I thought I was falling apart. The hormonal rollercoaster really knocked my confidence, personally and creatively, and it took a good few years to find my way through.

My work had also changed enormously. Before the pandemic, I was making so much content for brands. Sometimes I was completely overwhelmed by how much work was coming in, and then suddenly it all stopped. Of course, everything stopped for a while, but that side of my business never really recovered and neither did my confidence in it.

Then, in 2022, Luke finally persuaded me that perhaps we should give the Vietnam idea a go. I’d been resisting the idea. As much as I desperately wanted a change of scenery, I was scared. But our eldest was at university, our youngest was heading off travelling and it felt like the stars had aligned. Especially as I was dreading empty nest, I’d found our eldest leaving so difficult, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like with them both going. If we were ever going to explore whether Luke could grow his business in Southeast Asia, this was probably the moment.

So we packed up our house which was a huge, long and quite mad process. Then, in March 2023, we left.

I already knew 2023 was going to be a big year and it was also my final year in my forties, so in January I decided I wanted to make a video every day. I began with really short, simple videos while I found my feet. Then I started adding voiceovers and looking for more of a story each day. They weren’t always Day in the Life videos. Sometimes they focused on one moment or one idea, but every day I had to pay attention and find something to say.

And I did it. All 365 days.

It’s still one of my favourite projects I’ve ever made. A whole year of videos from such a huge period of change in our lives. We travelled around Vietnam from March until July, came back to the UK for a few months and then returned to Vietnam in November.

I suppose this also explains where all the blogging energy went.

I was documenting more than ever, but all my time and attention were going into those daily videos. I wish I’d written some blog posts alongside them because there’s something different about having the words, photographs and videos gathered together with a date stamped on them.

But I didn’t have the capacity, and there’s no point regretting it now. Sometimes you have to choose where your energy goes, and in 2023, mine went into making those 365 little stories.

Then 2024 rolled around, I didn’t continue making a video every day, but I did start a monthly Day in the Life project called 24th:DITL. Every 24th each month I would carry on documenting without the pressure of having to do it daily. Here’s a significant episode when I turned 50!

and an ordinary day in Hoi An.

Towards the end of 2024, around October, I started moving back towards horizontal video. I’d spent so long filming vertically for Instagram, including the whole of my 2023 project, and I really wanted to give YouTube a whirl.

Turning the camera around sounds like such a small thing, but it brought me back to how I used make videos and changed how I was looking and filming. After being in Vietnam for over a year, it helped me see everything a little differently again.

I’d also made a few Week in the Life videos towards the end of the year and really enjoyed them. So, obviously, I thought – could I possibly do this every week throughout 2025?… And so began my year of weekly vlogs.

I’d loved using voiceover and finding a story in the daily videos from 2023, and the weekly vlogs gave me more room to explore that. Some weeks came together easily. Others were a real struggle, like when my dad died.

Sometimes my days felt very repetitive and I was filming the same routines and places again and again. During some of those harder weeks, I dipped back into my archive. I looked at what I had filmed in previous years and was reminded how much these videos eventually mean to me. That became a big part of what kept me going.

Even when a week felt ordinary while I was living it, I knew I would see it differently one day.

And there were also plenty of amazing weeks, like when visiting the UK and enjoying life in Hoi An.

By the end of 2025, I had made 52 weekly vlogs and documented another whole year of our life.

Again, I wish I’d written more here about the process while I was doing it, but perhaps I can still do that now in a future post.

When 2026 arrived, I knew I didn’t want to continue the weekly vlog every week. As much as I believe there’s always something worth documenting, my weeks here are often very similar and steeped in routine. The thought of continuing to produce a weekly vlog felt too daunting.

So I made the project fit my life a little better. Choosing just one week during the month to document, usually one where there’s something interesting happening.

Here’s Jan & May 2026 –

Coz I do love a monthly roundup… I’ve been doing them for years –

Feb 2021 –

Nov 2021 –

June 2024 –

The first few in 2026 had voiceovers –

Then in June, July and August I simplified things even further by collecting two little snippets each day.

I’m not saying I’ll stick with that format for the rest of the year. Let’s see how it goes. But I’ve really enjoyed it, and I think it deserves a separate blog post because it’s such an easy project to try.

So, that’s more or less where I’ve been and what I’ve been creating.

Not blogging, but certainly documenting. Making hundreds of videos, moving countries, turning fifty, building a life in Vietnam and trying to find creative projects that fit each version of my life as it changes.

None of this is to say I’m suddenly going to start blogging regularly again. I know better than to make that sort of announcement!

But I do like having this space that is mine and that will be here with no algorithm driving it or weird ai vibes. I forgot to mention that I have been curating My Substack newsletter for the past couple of years and I always meant to share it here too. But I’ve never did. That is kinda blogging but it is written to go out to other people and, although it’s still in my thoughts and musings, I’m aware of the audience reading it.

This feels different. This can be my journal again. Somewhere to write things down, add a few photographs, gather the videos and leave a timestamp for myself.

I’ve had this space since 2010. The last five years may have been a little quiet, but I’d like to come back and catch up.

So, here we are.