Time for a change. Actually, it has been, for a while. Life moves on, offering new adventures and challenges, and this website will reflect that more and more, as I update it to my current reality. It will now function only as a scrapbook and personal blog, as I will no longer use it as an online CV in the pursuit of creative work. You’ll still find loads of stuff here, about my previous life in the arts. It was a 40 year career with many ups and downs, rags to riches to rags again, on and off stage, up a ladder, behind a desk, and swinging a sword. It was a grand adventure – only topped by the one I’m having on the farm now.

The combination of Covid and Brexit has made any idea of keeping a toe in that past life more trouble than it’s worth. And to be brutally honest with myself, I haven’t had the enthusiasm for it for a while now. Possibly because, once I got over the burn-out I was trying to ignore, I realized that I LOVE my farm life, as much as I used to love being on a stage or in a rehearsal room… and I’m happy to make it my total focus. A friend tells me it’s because this new work is as creative and all-consuming as my past work, and that this life and I are made for each other. I agree. I guess you could say I’ve chosen to see the Covid/Brexit combo as a nasty-but-necessary kick in my backside, and an opportunity to reevaluate a few things…to throw away any doubts about this path I’m now on. I’m certainly not the only one doing this kind of soul searching this year.

I’ll still use this site to share the occasional blogs which are too personal or political (or both!) to belong on our farm website. So do follow me, if you’d like to read the (very) occasional, and sometimes pretty intense blog from this site.

But most of my writing is about my farm life now, so if you want to follow my stories about life on a Highland hill farm, the lessons I’m learning there, and the people and animals Donald and I are loving and caring for there, here’s that link: https://thehirsel.com/

So, have a look around and enjoy your stay in my halls of memory. Enjoy the occasional rant. And then maybe, someday, I’ll meet you down (or up, actually!) on the farm.