A trip down memory lane (la voie de la memoir)
A new platform but repurposed content (sustainable content I like to call it or pre-loved)
In June 2013 after many years of editing a magazine and website for young women called Company, I decided it might be time to dip my toes into the waters of blogging. I featured young women all the time in my magazine who had forged careers doing just that - in fact by the time I entered the world of blogging most of them had become vloggers or influencers while I was becoming increasingly uninfluential. But how hard could it be this blogging business? And so ‘We Bought A French House’ was launched.
Fast forward to 2022 and I still ostensibly work in the world of magazines and websites although these days we have to refer to it as ‘strategic content’ but I long ago gave up my blogging career realising that it was incredibly time consuming if you want to do it properly.
And then my former colleague Farrah Storr left our building to enter the world of newsletter content - she came to be Head of Writer Partnerships here at Substack and suggested I sign up. And so here I am. And I won’t lie it IS nice to write - even if no one reads it - although the thing I loved about blogging was the response I got from people who loved to hear about my exploits. We even had someone show up in France one day who was a fan of the blog (slightly stalkerish really).
So my first newsletters here are actually going to be repurposing my old blog content - I will be telling the story of our french house all the way up to modern day and beyond. Lazy? Yes a bit... but there is so much I’ve written that is just languishing on an unloved blog like Woody from Toy Story shoved at the bottom of a toybox. I’m simply reinventing it for a new audience (possibly friends will have read it before but unless they really have empty lives I doubt even my nearest and dearest remember any of it)
I’d love to know what you think
JUNE 2013
I’ve decided to write a blog. I am roughly three years too late. Well, I’m actually about six years too late – even my nine year old already has a blog but in this instance I mean I am three years too late on my chosen topic. We bought this house in rural South West France almost three years ago and I knew it was the perfect project to document Grand Designs style on a blog. But I didn’t. But I am now. I’m starting from the beginning and eventually I will get to present day, like Kevin Mcleod turning up in his North Face parka to see ‘how it all turned out’. A sort of suspense thriller blog of doing up a house….. do we ever finish it? Do we find just the right shade of grey on the Farrow and Ball colour charts for the bathroom? Well you will have to wait and see…..
This just popped up on my timeline and I remember it well. We also have a French house and I’m hoping reading your newsletters will reinvigorate enthusiasm for our own ongoing renovations!