Two Years in Substack World

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Good day Red Cabbage Heads,

My very first post happened a whole 2 years ago. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing back then. I started off with 0 subscribers, no followings to transfer over from other sites, and the first were all immediate family, who count but also sort of don’t. This was it, just me in the raw. And now I have 475 ish. Woot woot, go me!

I have achieved a lot of what I set out to do and much more. I have found many tribes. And often those tribes overlap. I’ve found a sense of beginning to belong. This takes me a long time as I’ve been shafted let down many times in the past that I am now incredibly reticent to give and accept myself and others in this context. But that’s a me problem and I hope to overcome it.

Before I split my page and made The Shadow Mirror, I shared photos of my year, you were with me through the ups and many downs of my Autism diagnosis, you read poems and couple of short stories, you watched my words disappear and then me take up knitting tiny creatures as some form of creative outlet, you saw my search for a wheelchair that can give me part of my life part, you read about my chronic illness too. As well as a few erroneous other posts on things I just wanted to talk about. Some people have stayed, some have left. We have covered a lot this year. I hope to continue to entertain, enrage, engage, and enthuse. (Took me ages to come up with 4 ‘e’ words, I hope you appreciate them.) Now this Substack is almost purely about knitting and photos; the home of The Knitted Ones. The world changes.

So in the words of the stone above, hopefully this ‘blog’ will continue amuse me and entertain you. Here is to the next year to come.

Onto the probably boring but very necessary thanks. I am very grateful to many people -

Nelly Bryce

for introducing me to Poetry Pals/Jounalling Wildand giving me the impetus to get writing again, so far I’ve managed 75+ poems this year, 200+ last year, which is sincerely amazing.

Lisa Andradez

a fellow ME warrior and poet, who gets me on my dark illness days.

Margaret Ann Silver

whose poetry I look out for like a bookmark to the days, we have very different styles and I love her posts.

Kathryn Anna Marshall

who encouraged me to submit poems for publishing.

Lisa Bolin 🌸

and

Sam Galloway (she/her) 💕

who inspire me. My first paid subscriber who might have giggled over the whooping that ensued when the notification can in. And so many, many more, if I mentioned you all this would indeed be very, very, dull.

And everyone else that knows me doesn’t know me and has that pleasure yet to come. (1980s UK radio reference)

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3 Red Cabbage Heads is a free and reader supported publication. Subscribe now to support me, you can also upgrade to a paid subscription, it doesn’t give you any more access to my words, but a handwritten note and a probably completely useless small, handmade by me, gift are yours and my eternal gratitude.