Coffee Date #7 (Catching up and some Social media updates)

Hello everybody. Hope you’re all doing well. I’ve been meaning to write another one of these for so long but life has completely taken over. As it always seems to do. One thing has remained quite constant though: readers of this blog just reminded me that the time for another coffee chat has lapsed and it was high time for an update.

Without taking away anything from these lovely people, I’m always taken by surprise when I get asked for updates. I’m glad many of you find these useful, and if not that, sufficiently entertaining. As I have said before, as much as I love reading about people’s life and adventures, I lead a small life and I’m constantly wondering why my readers keep coming back here. I’m so glad they do.

Which brings me neatly to one of the reasons I am encouraged to write this update. With so many book reviews I gladly published on C&T during the hot summer months, that most certainly belong here and have earned themselves a rightful place on what is mainly a food blog, I thought that an informal chat with you all would be the perfect transition to things coming up in the Autumn months. So enough rambling and let’s go have a coffee.

(Please note: I decided to take me time with this one and changing the format a little bit. It takes me some time to come up with a good first sentence to every paragraph and sometimes the result can be either cheesy or somewhat repetitive. I’ll just avoid that altogether, at least for the time being.)

It’s Tuesday 26^th as I’m writing this but I’m sure I won’t publish today. One of the things I’ve set my mind to try to do from now on is to think more about my writing. I’m never going to publish any masterpiece mind you – I don’t feel accomplished enough to do that, but I can definitely put more thought into content. Rushing into things does catch up with me and I haven’t felt good about it at all. The content in the past couple of years seemed somewhat disparate. Thus, with the 7^th anniversary of Chorizo & Thyme coming up early next year, it’s high time I regroup and take into consideration where I would like to take all this in the future.

I haven’t been regular in my posts. As some of you pointed out to me during the past few weeks, I’ve definitely not written every week, which is completely true. Truth is I’ve been busier than ever which is not normally the case in the summer, and honestly this year I’ve struggled with back pain unlike any other I’ve experienced before. Apart from spring cleaning our house, and made the mistake of lifting incorrectly some heavy boxes, I also tripped while going for walks, and fell twice, in the space of five weeks. So when I was just recuperating from the first nasty one, which thanks to the prompt response of my parents, ended up with just a few minor scrapes and a huge headache, I fell once more one weekend while walking towards my car one evening. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, I managed to get up and go, but I started feeling sore as soon as I got in the driver’s seat.

During the next three weeks there was no way I could spend more than 10 minutes at a time at my computer writing reviews and doing admin. I worked around this with hot packs on my back, and a round of Norgesic tablets that almost blew my eyes off. Johann said I looked like Puss In Boots – my pupils were so dilated I couldn’t look at a TV or computer screen for long. I wore my sunglasses inside. I managed though because it’s amazing how our bodies adapt to pain. Moving helps more than you know and I still managed some light stretching exercises. Painful, yes, but necessary. Incidentally, when I could drive again, a friend of mine called me up the morning we were supposed to meet up for coffee to ask me if I could visit her at her place instead. She too did some work around the house and her back did not like it at all. I could understand perfectly. Thank goodness she’s doing better now.

Being mentally on 24/7 didn’t help me at all so I also have decided to pare down on social media. As much as it pains me (well…to be honest it will for a while but I’m sure I’ll be better for it) Facebook will be the first to go. I will keep my personal page and post links to my blog posts on there, but I’ll eventually remove the C&T blog page. I will still be on Messenger for any queries and meetings so there will never be a total break anyway. I’ve had serious issues with Facebook for quite a number of years now, and now I’ve had enough. It’s not just the negativity on there that’s making me sick, but I’m not going into all that right now.

As for Twitter, I always preferred it over Facebook, any day, any time, so I will spend a bit more time on that, although there will be significant breaks. I find Twitter easier to manage. As for Instagram, that’s even easier, although I cringe at the thought that it belongs to Facebook now. I’ll just have to wrap my head about that and move along.

I’ve rambled enough so I’m stopping here. Don’t worry though. I’m not going to disappear.

Have a great week everybody!

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