On this last day of 2017, I thought it would be fun to look back over the year at what has been going on in my life and sharing some of my favourite as well as most popular blog posts with you.

As some of you may know, I had another blog Edwina’s Episodes, which had just reached its 3 year anniversary. I was proud of how I had built that blog up, and the number of people who enjoyed it and interacted with me. Well, at the beginning of October, I decided that I could no longer use it as there were so many technical problems with it (mostly from me buggering about with it). Sadly, the site was down more than it was up and I even managed to get myself locked out of it, as well as delete most of it, so it has been retired for good now.

Luckily, I had already set up this blog in my own name, mainly for writing my poems, but as I ended up posting everything on the other blog anyway, it got rather abandoned! It is now fully up and running, but of course, does not have as much content on it, although I am doing my best to rectify that. I won’t be able to link to all of the posts I wanted to over the past year as they are on the other blog, but I have brought some posts over here, and you can click on the links to read them.

Anyway, back to 2017. Starting the year, I was anxiously awaiting getting accepted for a university to study for a BSc in Adult Nursing.  After a series of tests and interviews, I finally got the news I was waiting for on my birthday in February that I was accepted, and started in April as a Student Nurse.  Being a ‘mature student’ was harder than I expected mainly because I have quite a lot of experience in nursing already, but I have to apply it from a different perspective!

As far as blogging was concerned, I decided to introduce my video poems on a Monday as a feature, and team up with Sandra Dorey from Wild Daffodil blog to take part in her #Sillysaturday posts. It started with her making these beautiful little figures out of pebbles, flowers and stones and me telling her that it would be fun if they had a little story to go with them. Sandra suggested a poem would be a good way of telling their story and our collaboration was born! I have to say, I am absolutely loving it and really hope that we will continue this in 2018. My favourite character so far has got to be Maggie the lap dancer.

This all leads to Sandra actually getting some greetings cards printed, some with her artwork on, and some with both her artwork and my poem. What a thrill it was to receive a special package from Daffy, especially as those cards are such excellent quality too.

Throughout the year, I tried to embark on a healthier lifestyle, joining the gym and also trying to adopt a healthier diet. I appreciate that this is still a work in progress but it is something that I am keen to continue in 2018. Hopefully, I will be able to stop myself snacking whilst writing assignments and comfort eating when it all gets too stressful! I will keep you posted of course, on my endeavours.

I wanted to nurture my blog a little more, (before I ended up breaking it) and decided that I needed a little help with some aspects of Social Marketing and Pinterest in particular. I contacted the lovely Suzie from Suzie Speaks who as I am sure many of you know, is a successful  Media Management Consultant and she helped me to grow my Pinterest account followers and views substantially and gave me some fantastic advice to boot! Thankfully, she was there to help out when it all went pear-shaped with my Edwina’s Episodes blog too.

Towards the end of the year, I was thrilled to see that my Halloween and Christmas limericks went down really well with everyone. What really made my day though, was when I actually had requests to write limericks about an elf and a mince-pie! That is what I love so much about the blogging community, the interaction that we have. As yet I do not have a particular feature in mind for 2018, but perhaps I could do something like that. Any ideas would be welcome.

Finally, I would just like to thank all of you so much for reading my blog, especially to those of you still with me despite all the glitches, hitches and cock-ups that happened throughout the year. Your friendship and support mean the world to me. I look forward to seeing what 2018 brings for us, and I wish you all a Happy New Year!!

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