I’m kickstarting this brand new blog with a bit of a get-to-know-me style chat.
Firstly, my name is Jodie and I have three children – Freya, Eva, and Elsa. I have a wonderful partner, a dog, and two ponies.
Some of you will have followed me right from the beginning of my blogging career when I used to run Life With Pink Princesses – a parenting and lifestyle blog. Right now it feels like a whole lifetime ago, and so much has changed.
It was just last week that I was sat with old family friends at the funeral of a beloved man, and one particular lady said to me, “never stop writing.” Quite honestly, I stopped, not intentionally, but it was a weird mixture of having my blog ripped away unexpectedly (reasons I’ll go into in a moment) and because, quite honestly, finding the words became hard.
In 2021, my Mum passed away from Covid. It was unexpected and traumatic, and I knew life would never be the same. Her death was the start of my writing slipping away – how could I write about a life so painful?
Then, in May 2022, my little family was hit by more trauma. I won’t ever fully go into the ins and outs of the situation, but the “in a nutshell” is that my now-ex-husband was arrested and, as a result, is now in prison. This was when my previous blog was over, and I did try to restart another, but the blogging world is now such a saturated landscape – it would never be the same.
So why am I here? Why have I chosen to start writing and documenting?
Writing is me. A past me, a future me, and I want it to be a present me. I’ve always written since a small child, and some would say it’s part of my DNA. That conversation I had with old friends really hit me hard, but not just that one conversation – my own children miss my YouTube videos and the way I documented their lives.
There is a great deal of things we need to catch up on, and probably a great way to begin is why the name of this new blog. Well, I’m now an equestrian! I know, I’m absolutely mental, and I have actually been documenting the journey on my TikTok page First Time Equestrians.
I want this blog to become an expansion of that but a place to talk about life away from horses too. Much like my previous blog, where I share life experiences, horse girl chats, and family stuff too. A bit of everything.
Right, I think that will be the end of the first post for now. Clearly, my writing bug has come back, and I might not stop!
First Time Equestrian: Beyond the Yard 