Nothing To Do With Bread

It's been such a long time since I added anything to this site, I thought I'd say 'Hello' and offer some explanation.

New subscribers to the site in the last few months will be surprised to suddenly receive an update after all this time. Long-standing subscribers have been wondering if my mailing list was broken.

Thank you so much to those who have written to ask if I'm ok, and those who have kept in touch in other ways, letting me know that you're baking and trying my recipes and (most pleasingly, to me) succeeding. Your kind words have played a big part in encouraging me back to the site, after such a long absence.

I'm perfectly fine. Nothing major happened. There was no trauma.

I was just tired.

I realised that I was overdoing it and took a conscious break from Freshly Baked, only, somehow, I never found the momentum to start writing again.

My children are 6, 4 and 3, which, you may appreciate, is a more than a handful. In fact, if I had a pound for every time someone commented, "You've got your hands full!" I'd be rich by now.

I left work to have my first baby and never went back. I set up Freshly Baked partly as something to do for Me. I wanted to have a grown-up project of my own that might even make me a modest income and keep me in coffee. It filled the 'work' gap in my mind.

Alas, it was hard for me to accept that being a full-time mum was exhausting enough, without sitting up late into the night composing articles.

These days, I home-educate the children, which provides a whole new level of challenge. I have learnt so much about myself, my parenting style and my deep-rooted personality flaws. I've had to accept that I can't do everything. The priority had to be the children and that was when I let Freshly Baked take a back seat.

I never meant to abandon it completely. Actually, the Freshly Baked Facebook Page* has seen a flurry of activity over the last few months. It's easy for me to post up mobile-phone pics of my latest baking, without the children noticing, whereas I can't seriously consider writing an article unless they are all asleep (by which time, I am also ready to fall into a deep coma).

I've tried to respond to questions by email or on Facebook and I've loved seeing pictures of the breads people have made. My favourite thing about this site is interacting with bakers both novice and experienced from round the world. Your success stories make me smile!

And now, having had a lengthy break, my energy is returning. I've got a new post in the pipeline (one about actual bread, this time) and, although I'm not making any promises, I hope to write more articles soon.

If you haven't done so already, click here for Fresh Bread In 20 Minutes. It's quick and delicious!

*Edit: I have now deleted the Freshly Baked Facebook page - it got too much to manage.