I am back, maybe. I dunno. Maybe.
Life managed to take over and something had to give and unfortunately it was my blog.
Sorry.
I looked back at my blog and thought: wow, I wrote a lot. How the hell did I find the time? Why did I stop? I have not been kidnapped by aliens or locked in a Belgian’s basement – I just got very busy and I ran out of time. Simples. Anyway, here is a bit of a recap of what went down:
Work Rather madly, I have become a teacher. I know! I now teach teenagers how to make films. They arrive at my classroom door brimming with confidence, their iPhones eminently capable of capturing HD (or 4k) video and then make terrible films. With the technology they have! I then teach them how to make good films, and sometimes the good ones make exceptional films. The real buzz is seeing the transformation from making YouTube only skateboard videos into proper films with narrative, decent audio and some originality. What I have discovered – having come to teaching from industry – is that teaching is a lot like an Argos. What you see hides the huge amount of stock contained behind the scenes…and you get to see a lot of spotty teenagers at the sharp end of things. Maybe I’ll do an entire post of my experiences of teaching.
Love I got divorced. I dated (that is a book, let alone a blog post, in itself). I found love again. Relations are great between everyone involved and my two incredible kids have taken everything in their stride an continue to amaze me every single day.
Kids My kids have bloomed into a 7 and a 9 year old (how did that happen?). They now are both completely bilingual and can ski faster than me. My son is rather a handy footballer and can speak passable German. My daughter is turning out to have inherited my drawing ability and is a pretty decent drummer.
Happiness I am happy. I live in a truly beautiful country. My kids are doing great. I have (after a long pause) taken up playing the guitar again (I now own four!) and I regularly cycle 100kms per week – a lot of it mountains. What’s not to be happy about?
Anyway, that’s it for now. I will genuinely try and write a bit more than I have.
Mr Shev's Blog 
Hello! Lovely to hear from you and very pleased to hear that life is lovely and happy. I do hope you write again soon!
I will try, I really dropped the ball on blogging. Really have no idea how you have managed to keep it going for so long…
Aww with all the doom & gloom in the world, it’s lovely to hear you’ve been away for such happy reasons x
Thank you. I am going to try really hard to blog at least weekly…or maybe bi-weekly 🙂
Mr Shev! So glad you’re back! I remember your blog from way back when I just started blogging and reading parenting blogs : When I discovered yours, I read your entire back catalogue because it was so good and so funny. So I do hope there will be more…. but no pressure : sounds like you’ve a lot going on!
I’m interested that you say frustrated writer, but not what you’d be writing : as you’ve a nine year old boy, and are a teacher, I hope ( as a hopeful writer myself, and Mum of an 11 year old boy) that you might be writing for children, as there’s shedloads of post apocalyptic dystopian nightmares, but not enough funny writing for older boys. Yes I know wimpy kid, ( which my son re-reads every time he finishes a post -apoc, as an antidote, I think) but Barry Loser? After about 9, books seem to divide into books about romance for girls, and books about poo and violence for boys. And then we wonder why everyone gets divorced! ( Sorry to hear about yours, btw : its not easy!)
I have a LOT going on. But, a really big thank you for reading what I have written – it makes such a difference knowing that people are reading and enjoying.
Kind of frustrated writer. I wrote a book, called Insecure, which I sold as a Kindle book and it sold about 3.5k copies and I actually got a cheque off of Amazon – yes, sometimes they do release some of their considerable wealth. I am working on a 2nd book…and a book about my adventures in dating (like, wow, I am amazed anyone over 40 meets anyone let alone someone…)…and a book about parenthood…and I am working with a friend scripting a sketch show for BBC3…AND I am trying to write a book aimed at girls and boys who like adventure stories, with cliff hangers (like Indiana Jones kinda thing…)….ANNNNNNND I am over half way through my Masters in International Education which requires me to write at least 50k words over 3 years. So, yeah, I write. Plus my blog as well. Phew.
Divorce is not that bad if both parties come to it with their eyes open and put the children front and centre…