First off, I must apologise for my radio silence on the blog. I know the golden rule of blogging is update the site regularly, but it’s also true that sometimes life just gets in the way. And I have had rather a lot of stuff going on! What have I been doing? In summary:

1. Left my role as Deputy Editor of Total Women’s Cycling – tears!

2. Embarked upon my new freelance career – exciting!

3. Moved from London to North Somerset – tiring but good!

4. Been on a mountain biking holiday to Spain – fantastic!

So the past few weeks have mostly involved packing, moving stuff, taking trains, writing stuff online, going to some conferences, applying for stuff, unpacking and so on. I was tempted to write a post on how it always takes me longer to pack than it should as I tend to get distracted going through my things. I keep finding photographs or momentos and then getting lost in a little reminisce about days past. Happy times, happy memories. It’s actually quite a fun process, if it wasn’t for the fact I had a deadline on when everything needed to be packed by.

Now I’m getting used to living in the countryside. Well, sort of countryside – it’s actually quite a big town. It’s also right next to the train station, and it’s quicker for me to get into the centre of Bristol door-to-door than it was for me to get from my house in London to my work at TWC, also in London. I’m unpacking my stuff, and setting up my new home. I’m finding out about the places I want to visit, activities I want to do, and people I want to meet up with in the area. I’m doing admin, changing addresses, setting up accounts. It’s all groundwork.

I was worried about the lack of visible output from all of this over the last few weeks though. I felt that I should have had more tangible evidence of the work I’d been doing. My mum taught me a very timely French saying: Reculer pour mieux sauter. It means ‘to draw back, the better to leap’.

That’s what I’m doing now. I’m setting up my new base, putting the groundwork in, preparing myself. Then, soon, it’ll be time to leap forward.