Not “moved house” the way people casually say it at dinner parties, holding a glass of wine, talking about square footage and updated appliances. I mean I stood in an empty room that used to have Darren’s chair in it and wished/prayed/screamed/cried that it could be different. Different so I didn’t have to move. Different so that I could stay there forever.

I knew it was the thing I had to do. Staying wasn’t sustainable — not financially, not physically, not in any practical sense a sensible person could argue with. I am a sensible person. Ask anyone. I made lists. I had reasons, numbered.

My heart did not receive the memo.

My heart wanted to stay in that kitchen forever, wanted to keep hearing him move around even though he hasn’t moved around in years, wanted to leave everything exactly as it was in case leaving it meant admitting something my heart wasn’t ready to admit. My heart, it turns out, does not care about what’s practical. My heart has never once cared about that.

But — and this is the bit I keep having to remind myself — the house didn’t hold him. I did. I still do. He came with me. He always was going to. That didn’t make it easier.

So far I’ve cried for ten days straight. But it’s slowly getting better. I kept busy. Busy enough that somewhere in the last day or two I noticed I’d gone a whole hour without a sniffle.

Then a car went past with the number plate ending in DAZ. Followed by three others with his initials. I know exactly what it is. He’s telling me he’s holding me tight and he approves of our new home.

Well, of course he does. He had a hand in finding it.

Betty is not malicious. That’s the thing about Betty. She genuinely thinks she’s helping. When something good happens — a new opportunity, a change, anything that requires me to move forward — Betty arrives with a lukewarm cup of tea and a list of reasons why staying exactly where I am is the safest option. She will bring up an argument from twenty years ago that has absolutely nothing to do with the current situation. She’s thorough like that.

This week I am looking at buying a house. On my own. And Betty has been very busy.

I’ve tried explaining to her that if I don’t move into this house I will lose all my money in rent. Betty is not interested in logic. Betty is interested in the familiar, the known, the safe — even when the safe thing is actually the dangerous thing. This is not a conversation you can win. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Here is what I’ve come to understand about Betty. She was built a long time ago by a little girl who moved a lot and learned to say goodbye to everything before she got too attached. She’s not wrong that goodbyes are hard. She’s just about forty years late with the advice and applying it to entirely the wrong situations. I don’t need protection from a house. I need protection from staying still.

Well, sorry Betty. I’m doing it anyway. The house, the change, the terrifying leap forward into something better. I never say goodbye — not to people, not to places, not even to the old version of myself that Betty is so fond of. My hubby always signed off with Hooroo — very Australian, very him. Not goodbye. Just — until next time.

So that’s what I say to Betty when she pipes up. Hooroo, love. We’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it.

Does your Betty have a name? I’d love to know I’m not the only one arguing with my own subconscious. 🕯️

Twenty. Seven.

I live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. They call it the Sunshine Coast, which is optimistic. This year alone we have had so much rain that the name feels like a personal joke. The thing about Sunshine Coast rain though is that it doesn’t come with cold. It comes with humidity. It is hot and wet, and the air itself feels like it’s wearing a jumper. Did I mention I own twenty-seven of them?

They didn’t arrive all at once. That’s the thing about a jumper problem — it’s not a problem, it’s a collection, and collections accumulate slowly and with excellent justification at the time. This one was soft. That one was the most perfect shade of grey. This one was on sale and honestly it would have been rude not to. They crept in one at a time over many years and made themselves at home and I let them because have you ever put on a really good jumper? The weight of it. The softness. The feeling of being gently wrapped up in something warm when the world is a bit much. A good jumper is a hug you can wear, and I will not apologise for that.

The cold does come to the Sunshine Coast. Occasionally. For about three weeks in July. I am ready for those three weeks. I’m more than ready. I could outfit a small village.

I did get rid of a couple. Two, maybe three. The rest are back in the wardrobe, waiting for July like hopeful little woollen optimists. I stood there looking at all of them and instead of feeling shame I felt something closer to joy. They’re mine. I love them. They make me happy in a way that is completely disproportionate to what they are, which is just fabric, but here we are.

There are worse things to collect. And on the days when the world is loud and life is a lot — a soft jumper and a quiet couch is genuinely enough.

Twenty-seven is probably enough though. Probably.

Tell me your version of the jumpers — the thing you have too many of and absolutely do not regret. 🕯️

Before anyone knew I was writing, I was writing. Just me, my laptop, the balcony, and a story I was keeping entirely to myself. No deadlines. No marketing. No one waiting on anything. Just the quiet, unhurried joy of making something up and seeing where it went. It was genuinely one of the best experiences of my life.

I thought that’s what being an author would be. The idea was adorable.

The reality? Well, that looks quite different. Deadlines. Marketing. Content. Newsletter. Reader group. Instagram. Facebook. And today — TODAY — I am making candles for book boxes while trying to film it one handed because it’s content, right.

I burnt three fingers and gave myself a headache. The candles are lovely though.

And TikTok. Don’t even get me started on TikTok. I’m not on it yet but I know I need to be and it’s sitting there on the horizon judging me. I tried it once, hated every second, deleted it, and now I’m going back because that’s where the readers are and I will follow them absolutely anywhere, including places that make me want to lie down on the floor. This is dedication. Someone give me a medal.

The actual writing — that part where I step through an imaginary door and get to play in a world that I created, with characters who feel like my best friends, who refuse to behave and make me laugh out loud, experience a romance with a hero that not even Chris Hemsworth could match up to, and solve a mystery that keeps me on my toes right to the last page.

In this place time does something strange. The real world goes quiet. It’s just me and the story.

But that bit gets a fraction of the time I thought it would.

And here’s the thing. The thing I want to be very honest about. I love every single bit of it. Even the bits I hate — and I genuinely hate the marketing — I love that they exist because they mean the writing is real. It’s out there. People are reading it. That version of me on the balcony with her secret story had no idea what was coming and I think that was exactly right.

You have to fall in love with the dream before reality shows up with a TikTok account and a content calendar.

But if I ever get a quiet Tuesday and the balcony is free — I’m taking my laptop out there. Just to remember where it all started.

Did your dream job turn out to look nothing like the dream? I’d love to know I’m not alone. 🕯️

Tuppence — my chihuahua, four kilograms of absolute chaos in a very small body — had an upset stomach. I didn’t know this when I set Robo running in the bathroom and went about my morning. About ten minutes later a smell reached me that I will not attempt to describe here except to say that I knew immediately something had gone very wrong.

Reader, Robo had found it. And then, in the dedicated and thorough way that he approaches every job, he had dragged it across the entire bathroom floor. In perfect lines. Neat, even, wall to wall. Like the world’s most horrifying piece of abstract art.

My first thought was WTF. My second thought was where do I even start. My third thought — and I’m not proud of this — was that it was kind of impressively thorough.

This was not Tuppence’s first offence. I know the inside of that vacuum intimately now in the way you only know something you have taken apart with your bare hands and cleaned within an inch of its life. Robo has been through things. We both have.

Tuppence, for his part, knew he was in trouble. Ears flat, eyes down, the full performance. For approximately one second. Then he walked away and got on with his day like nothing had happened, which is the most chihuahua thing that has ever occurred in this house and that is genuinely saying something.

I cleaned the bathroom. I cleaned Robo. I made a cup of tea and sat down and laughed until I cried because honestly what else do you do. This is my life — robot vacuums, small dogs with unreliable stomachs, and crime scenes in the bathroom before 9am.

Nobody told me this is what living alone would look like. Frankly I think they should have mentioned it.

If you have a robot vacuum story — and I suspect some of you do — please tell me everything. 🕯️

This is my life now. I walk into rooms with absolute purpose and arrive with nothing. Not a trace of why I came. The room looks back at me. I look at the room. One of us knows what’s going on and it isn’t me.

I’ve started speaking in what I can only describe as my own private language. Sentences that begin with great confidence and then just… stop. Mid-thought. Mid-word sometimes. The people around me have learned to fill in the gaps, which is either very kind or a sign that I’ve been doing this long enough and they know me well. Probably both.

The thing nobody warned me about is the feeling that I’m not quite as sharp as I used to be. That the woman who could once hold seven plot threads in her head simultaneously, remember where she put everything, and finish a sentence with the word she actually intended, has been quietly replaced by someone who needs a rope tied to the dishwasher.

I’m a writer. Words are supposed to be my thing. And yet…

Here’s what I’ve come to though — I’m actually okay with it. The fog rolls in, I work around it. I write things down. I talk to myself more than I used to. I start tasks and finish different ones and somehow the day still gets done. There’s a strange freedom in having given up on being effortlessly on top of it all.

My twenty-year-old self had a very efficient brain and absolutely no idea what to do with it. My current self forgets why she walked into the kitchen and has written six books anyway. I’ll take it.

And honestly? “Menobrain Made Me Do It” is still the best book title I’ve ever accidentally come up with. I’m keeping it. Somewhere. If I can remember where I put it.

If this made you laugh, or nod, or both — you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. 🕯️

The problem is grief parks itself in the walls. In the light through a particular window. In the spot on the couch where he always sat. I will probably always look for him in this house. I will probably look for him in the next one too. This is not something I’m trying to fix because quite honestly – I don’t want to.

And here’s the thing about my husband. He’s not limited by real estate.

He turns up in number plates, songs on the radio, and flickering lights when I ask if he’s around. He is, if anything, harder to get rid of now than when he was alive. I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

This Easter I placed my supermarket order online. At checkout the website recommended products I may have previously purchased. I scrolled through without really looking.

Top of the list was his hot sauce.

Four years. It’s never recommended once in four years. There it was.

I laughed. Then cried. Then laughed again.

He came to Easter. He announced himself via a Woolworths algorithm. This is completely on brand.

So, I know he’ll find the new address. I know he’ll turn up in the walls eventually, in the light through a new window, in whatever spot on whatever couch I end up with. I know all of this.

I’m still not ready to go.

But I’m going anyway. Eleven attempts at making peace and counting.

Energy can’t be destroyed. It’s true. I looked it up. He’s not going anywhere.

He’ll find the new address.

Because I know he’ll never leave me.

I had a plan.

It was a good plan. Lovely husband, thriving business, family around me, books to write. Life was ticking along nicely, thank you very much.Then 2022 arrived and apparently didn’t get the memo.

My mum died. My biological mother died. My husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. In the same year. I’d like to say I handled it with grace and dignity but there was a lot of ugly crying in supermarket carparks, so let’s just say I handled it.

2023 took another close family member. 2024 took my dad, my father-in-law, my husband, and — on the actual day of my dad’s funeral — my bird. Even my bird. Then our business went into liquidation and in 2025 I sold my house to pay the debts and started again from scratch.

I am now menopausal, frequently bewildered, buying my first home on my own at an age I never expected to be doing that, and I talk to number plates.

I should explain that last part.

My husband still visits. I know how that sounds. But he spells things out in number plates, songs pop into my head at exactly the right moment, I smell my dad’s hair out of nowhere, and my home has more angels, guides and spirits dropping in than a very spiritual Airbnb. I find it comforting. My psychologist finds it interesting. We’re both right.

I stopped writing for a long time. Grief does that — it sits on your chest and makes everything that used to come easily feel completely out of reach. But I’m back now. Slowly, then all at once, some days not at all - the way these things tend to go.

I’m rebuilding. The business, the writing career, the life. I’m a mum and a Nannie to two grandsons who think I’m hilarious, mostly for the wrong reasons. I do a lot of dumb things. I cry at unexpected moments. I laugh at inappropriate ones. I’m going for a traditional publishing deal. I’m writing about a menopausal heroine because if anyone is qualified for that particular assignment, it’s me.

I don’t always know why I’m still here. But I’m starting to think the answer might be worth finding out.

So — welcome to my Substack. There are books. There’s a gossip column from a fictional town full of women who won’t stay quiet. And there’s this: me, figuring it out, one ridiculous day at a time.

Come in. Grab a coffee. Mind the spirits.