Exactly 5 years ago today I started this blog. My first post copied below set out my intentions:

“This blog will contain a variety of my poems, some will be new ones as I finish them and some will be poems I have written previously. My poetry is often written with performance in mind and I regularly perform at Write Out Loud venues in the North West of England.”

Five years on how things have changed on the writing front (nowadays I call it poeting);

After an initial flurry of activity I found myself so busy with work and other commitments that although still writing and doing lots of other creative stuff I just didn’t have time for the blog and it slipped with very little activity in 2013 and 2014.

Earlier this year things started to pick up as I looked forward to my biggest ever gig – The Eroica  Britannia Festival so I started planning and at the same time blogging a bit more often and decided that I should finally put together that collection of poetry that had been rattling around as an idea in my mind for the last few years.

Eroica was brilliant and helped me to think of being a poet in a different way – I started to think of it as a much bigger part of who I am, I started to call myself a poet. I’ve performed more widely, Wherever I go I’m a poet and I’ve developed the confidence to say so, no more do I say “I write a few poems” now I’ll just say it as it is “I’m a poet”.

Finally I gave up the day job.

Creative work is where my heart lies and I’m working towards making a living from it. All the experience of writing, of creating and delivering workshops voluntarily and my teaching experience can surely combine to create myself a role where I can do something I really care about, support other people and put bread on the table (figuratively as I tend to make my own bread).

It is a massive step and not limited to poetry alone, I’m also creating images (mainly digital) and getting back into teaching art and photography with some plans for new kinds of workshop developing right now.

Exciting and a bit scary – but then isn’t life like that much of the time anyway.

Wonder what I’ll be saying in another 5 years…..