I'm back. Here's what changed while I was away.

I’m back.

My six-week break from the site wasn’t planned, but it proved to be necessary.

After my accident, back in March, I just didn’t stop. Sure, I had a week recuperating, but then I carried on working, around the follow-up appointments, and the surgery, and all the rest of it. And that then plunged me into my daughter leaving primary school, and the summer marking season and…

… and I realised I needed to slow down, or I was going to burn out massively before Christmas. So, I did. I did the work I needed to do – and no more. I disconnected from the web, and social media, and my email as much as I could afford to. Carefully, I fit in the work I had to do around spending time with my daughters, and generally tried to decompress from the internet firehose.

It was hard at first. Part of me was still panicking about losing my two longest-established streams of work: my training via journalism.co.uk and my writing work for NEXT Conference, both killed by a change of ownership (one in a matter of months, one took years…). But, it was clearly the end of an era, I had money in the bank, and I’d had a serious injury. Some R’n’R was needed.

My plans for 2026 and beyond

So, I’ve had a slow, digitally light summer, and feel much the better for it. Or, at least, I would if the family hadn’t managed to catch ‘flu in the last week. (And I mean ‘flu, the proper “wouldn’t get out of bed for £50”-type, not a cold). But here’s what’s next:

Lecturing

I’m upping my hours at City St George’s. The new head of department, the ridiculously supportive Karen, had been hinting at it for a while, and the wonderful Kath, who runs the undergraduate courses and the podcasting masters, had been rather more direct about it. I’ll now be working for CSG four days a week, and myself for one. I was reluctant to give up my independent consultancy entirely, but the prospect of a more stable income source as my girls get older and more expensive, but also the chance to build some things at the university — well, it was too tempting.

Consultancy

That shift in my working balance means I will be more selective about the clients I work with on a consultancy and training basis. Now I don’t need the work, I can throw my passion into those I care about.

Training

There will be more training courses coming from me in the near future – but in different ways than in the past. More on that in the upcoming weeks.

One side-benefit of all of this, is that I truly hope I’ll have a bit more time to work on this blog. I desperately miss it as both a place to work out what I’m thinking by forcing myself to write it down, and as an outboard brain, a backup of the links and ideas I’ve gathered from elsewhere in my work. As my shifting role at City St George’s focuses my work, so I can focus my writing here to match.

Look, I know that’s a bit vague. There’s a lot of moving pieces to sort out (including official confirmation of my hours shift…). But as soon as they land, and I can talk more about what I’ll be doing, you will all be the first to know.

So, anyway, great to see you again. How’ve you been…?