Sanguine Reboot
Survivor’s guilt
Three years have passed since I’ve written here. My last entry in June 2020 was about the birth of my son, and after that the site languished until I pulled the plug six months later. I was a new dad and didn’t have the time to keep it updated.
Becoming a parent at the start of the pandemic was a mixed blessing. I was furloughed for three months which became an extended paternity leave—and it was amazing to have that time to bond with my baby boy. But because of lockdown rules, no-one else could meet him properly. It was a quiet hardship that had far-flung consequences I couldn’t appreciate at that time.
Due to illness within our care circle, we also didn’t have any other support for most of his first year. We just got on with the day-to-day of living and caring for our beautiful little boy, despite it being one of the most difficult experiences of my life. And yet I am incredibly grateful that despite these difficulties, we came out of the other side when so many others did not.
I still have days where my survivor’s guilt gets the better of me. I remember going to Bluewater shopping center between lockdowns. Seeing it mostly deserted made me think of all the people who would never again go shopping with their family and friends. I am lucky: I survived, and with a healthy child, but I mourn all those lost to Covid and feel desperately sad for the families who lost loved ones and could not even say goodbye.
It was an awful, awful time. I’m not going to comment on the political failures that led to the UK having one of the worst Covid related death rates (and as an impartial civil servant, I’m not allowed to comment anyway). But I hope that those responsible will eventually be held to account.
Post pandemic parenting
The tragedy of the pandemic will haunt us all for a long time. But right now I have a job to do. Our lad is now three years old, and a happy, funny, inquisitive little boy. I must be a good dad for him, and so far it’s been an instructive experience. I get it wrong a lot. But he helps me to be a better man every day. The journey of parenting has barely begun, but I know it’s going to be an incredible adventure.
Radical reboot
As for this website, why resurrect it, and why now?
It seems like the right time to reclaim a little corner of the web. I’ve quit Twitter (well, I’m not active there but my account remains). I posted my last tweet on 2nd December 2022, the end of an era. I joined in 2009 when it was still rather niche. Thirteen years later, with a disastrous take-over by manchild Musk, there was no compelling reason to stay. Conversation with my tribe had already fallen to an all time low, and the prospect of now navigating through even more piles of right-wing nonsense did not appeal.
I thought I’d be more sad about it, but I didn’t really feel anything at all which is an even bigger indication that my time there was over. I don’t have an alternate option that appeals, unlike many who have left and moved to Mastodon. I still have a Facebook account, ostensibly to keep up with some family and friends, but I can barely find anything on there now except bizarre memes, staged pranks, and abysmal recycled TikToks. It’s all junk and surely time to ditch that too.
Building a personal site is a radical act in 2023
I’ve rebuilt this website to use it as we originally set out to do when we first put our words online back in the day. To share something of myself on my terms, not dictated by the whims and conditions of a hellish social network. It doesn’t even matter that I won’t have any kind of audience. I quite like the idea of having an undiscovered space on the web that a random traveller might discover and enjoy one day. Like the early days of surfing the web. Feels like a fresh novelty again after all this time!
I’m not going to put any pressure on myself at all. But I feel refreshed and ready to make some new things.
Let’s see where this leads…