A silence, and an anniversary...

Apologies for the sudden outbreak of silence around here – look on it as the lull before the storm, if you like. This week is likely to be quiet, as I’m deep in a deadline crunch or five, with Hazel’s christening and a trip to Paris coming up soon. Next week, of course, will be the normal storm of liveblogging from Le Web…

Things have been so busy, in fact, that I missed the anniversary of my redundancy on Wednesday. A year before, after lunch, I was pulled into a meeting in an anonymous little HR meeting room, and told that my days with RBI were over. At the time, all I could think was that I was in the middle of buying a house with my first child on the way, and suddenly I had no job. A year on? I’m too busy to note the passing of the day. Between flying to Helsinki with some brilliant people, working with the next generation of journalists, and keeping up my commitments to various other clients,  things are busy, fun and reasonably profitable. Oh, and I’m living in that house, and spending more time than I would have otherwise with baby Hazel.

I’m not prepared to say that being made redundant was the best thing that ever happened to me – the timing was too appalling and stressful for that – but I will say that the way I’ve spent the year since has been so incredibly rewarding that it more than makes up for it. Certainly, I’m enjoying life, work and family far more than I was this time last year, and I’m significantly more optimistic about the future.

And that has to be a great thing, right?