Blog Hop

I love reading about what makes other bloggers tick so I was chuffed when Charlie invited me to take part in her blog hop. I met Charlie within my first few months of blogging, in fact, it was nothing to do with blogging how we met. I was interested in joining Manchester WI and she was on the committee so we met to discuss how the WI works and what it involves. It turns out I found a really good friend and we now spend time together probably more regularly than we should. We are usually each others +1 to events and a day doesn’t go by when we don’t speak, text or email. Today she has been given spot 27 in the top 100 most influential Mancunians on Twitter… she beat the likes of Liam Gallagher and Jason Manford! Not bad for ‘just a blogger’ as we are so often referred to.

That’s one of the main things I love about blogging. I get to meet the most amazing people and I have made some lifelong friends from it. Anyway, back to the job at hand, the blog hop!

Why do I write?

I’ve always written in my spare time. This started when I was totally obsessed with Take That in the 90s and I would write to loads of penpals about our love for the boys and our recent sightings. I was always in a good position living in Manchester and within a bus ride of Manchester Airport. I would sit there for hours waiting for a glimpse of my favourite band. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t do that now due to the heightened security! As I matured (I’m still a huge Take That fan I would like to add) I still wrote to penpals but about life, love and other interests. In fact, I am still in contact with lots of the people I used to write to as a child/teen. This is where Facebook becomes such an amazing communication tool, I can stay in contact with people who live on the other side of the world with ease.

I started writing this blog as I had lost a lot of weight previously but the lbs had started to pile on. I figured keeping a blog about my journey may help me and keep me motivated. Unfortunately my love of food took over and my blog became more about eating and drinking out than weight loss! This has changed in the last few months though with regular posts about eating more healthily when at a restaurant and what options to choose.

What am I working on?

I’m trying to focus my blog back on healthy living to provide people choices when it comes to dining out in Manchester. I also have the trip of a lifetime booked for next month when I will be hitting the roads of America for a 3 week road trip with my friend (you can read about it here). I plan to blog my way around the West Coast and incorporate more travel related posts into my writing in the future. I have been well and truly bitten with the travel bug and Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos is next on my agenda.

How does my blog differ from others in its genre?

I wouldn’t say my blog is vastly different from other lifestyle bloggers who like to write a bit of a few things. I don’t have a niche like food bloggers or fashion bloggers but I tend to write about what I like, what I have a passion for, and I hope that comes across in my writing. I’ve fought with myself on many occasion about whether I should specialise in just one or two different things but then this is me, this is my blog. As much as it is lovely that people read it I write it for me, to document my life so I can look back at it in the future and remember all the fun stuff I got up to. Because of this mishmash of topics I’ve been lucky to do things I would never have been able to do otherwise. I will be on TV next week eating Heck sausages at their home farm in Yorkshire, I got to meet Shelina Permaloo at the launch of the new Weight Watcher programme where I spent 3 hours in London one random evening after work before coming back to Manchester the same night. All very random but completely thanks to Phat Cupcake and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

How does my writing process work?

Oh dear this is something I really need to get better at. I do take notes but I tend to get so excited by things that they stop halfway through an event then I have to rely on photographs to jog my memory. I have recently invested in a DSLR camera and am loving learning how to style photographs and use the light more for my photographs to get the perfect shot.

When it comes to sitting down to write a post I operate in 2 very different ways. Either I am able to sit and write 3-4 posts in one day and then schedule them for the following week or I literally write them and hit publish that night, like now. I know Charlie gets people to check her grammar and word flow but that isn’t me. I literally type, quickly read through and hit send. This backfired on me recently where I hadn’t taken enough notes and I made a few mistakes on a post. It has taught me to take better notes at an event and to get an expert to read over the technicalities to make sure they are right and conveying the right impression for the topic or brand. I think I have done that since and I will continue to pay more attention to the little details to ensure my posts are as accurate and interesting as possible.

Nominations

My first nomination is Rebecca from The Lucky Rainbow. Like me she writes about different things on her blog but she is also eating clean so I get to be inspired by the food she is eating and cooking! One for eating in moderation, like me, she also reviews the restaurants and bars of Manchester and I love her style of writing so much, you must check out her blog.

My second nomination is Dannii from Hungry Healthy Happy. This is one of the first blogs I ever read and I am completely in awe of what Dannii has achieved. She has lost 100lbs by eating right and exercising, no fads or diet pills here. She looks amazing (although she did before) and is my complete motivation on my current weight loss journey.

I’d like to add that I haven’t met either of these bloggers but I religiously read all their posts and really hope we can get together one day, probably over a cocktail. Well you can only eat clean 90% of the time.