a beginning

Yellowcraig, 5 August

It feels strange to be writing a first post on a new blog, but also good. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for some time. When I moved away from sharing property and design content on my previous blog, while I liked the space, that juxtaposition between the old and new content never sat well with me. I accepted that the archive was filled with property and interiors posts, while the recent posts were all about our walks and places we visited, but it still felt a bit… off. It felt like an old life and a new life had been spliced together, and not entirely harmoniously.

But then I kept sharing new posts, and in time it felt okay. It was still my tiny corner of this online world.

My third last post on the old blog was on July 31 last year. I’d finally found the words to share about Harris’s illness - now that he was recovering well and having had a clear CT scan a few weeks before. I was feeling deeply grateful, relieved, and anxious about the future - all at once. It’s probably the most personal, from-the-heart blog post I’ve written. I can read it now and feel the relief in my words. Our boy had pulled through an impossible surgery and had survived. He’s fought to get home to us, and he’d recovered.

After Harris died in October, I knew that I could never write that post on that blog. And I hesitate beginning this one, this space, with this post about loss. But this isn’t a post about loss; rather, it’s a post acknowledging that loss changes so much, that it can change everything, and that sometimes the only way forwards is to start afresh. Not to forget (never to forget), but to have a space that is unconnected. A different platform. A different title. A different design. Just, different.

Saying this, know that Harris will often be mentioned here, as will Bracken. Their names are always close. They are a part of me, and that won’t ever change.

For years, I had planned for The World According To Harris to be a blog. Indeed, it was initially, right at the start, back in 2014, but then my focus shifted to Instagram. And in creating this space I did wonder about the name: should this be the TWATH blog? But no, this needs to be something else - although if you’re following us on Instagram, you’ll recognise these walks and these places from the stories and posts and reels we share there. Only with a lot more words from me. Because that’s the thing about Instagram: that 2,200 character limit just isn’t enough. Sometimes it is, but often it isn’t.

So, welcome to this space. I hope you enjoy spending time here and meandering along these coastal paths with us, as we shift from summer into autumn and beyond.

Yellowcraig, East Lothian, 5 August 2024.

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