Dear Readers,

Wow! We landed in 2024 after a year that saw so many of us flying through hoops and dodging balls and circling on a variety of unforeseen roundabouts! Was yours that sort of year, or did things sail along fairly smoothly for you in 2023?

I remember sitting at my laptop in April 2023, determined to give The Holly Tree Tales website a complete Springtime refresh … and then found myself swept off to focus on other very pressing things … and so I released the ‘revamp’ pressure valve and let it all go, knowing that sooner or later I would find the headspace and the right energy, to return to the process of focusing fully on my blog.

Today, at long last, I have swept through the site and removed what had become excess, as Stage 1 of the process of a fresh start for the new year that we are in now. You will notice, when you visit The Holly Tree Tales, that the Welcome page has been updated a little and the site has been generally trimmed back to the basics.

For those who weren’t with me at the start of this journey of blogging, the link takes you to a sample of the messy blog beginning, when I was discovering how to use WordPress in January 2015. If you were there at the beginning, you might be as surprised as I was to learn that this week marks the ninth anniversary of The Holly Tree Tales.

The WordPress team kindly sent this message:

“Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 9 years ago.

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.”

Yes, I clearly remember those tiny, trepidatious blog steps in January 2015, with both our daughter and our son standing beside me at the computer, encouraging and guiding me through the preliminary process of setting up the site, feeling my way into what I had no idea I was getting into or up to at the time …

And I am still learning …

I did not read blogs when all of this started and I had no clue what I was doing, when I diligently and nervously followed the urgent promptings of friends on Facebook (many of whom had been at school with me in South Africa, during the 1970s) and others, to “write a blog”. Perhaps they figured out that, as I hadn’t written book of my story yet, a blog might at least get something happening. Hmmm …

I write everywhere and on everything (including napkins and cereal boxes), but am STILL not a regular nor reliable BLOGGER. Too bad and please accept my apologies for this!

It really is my intention to crack the simplification of use of online space with The Holly Tree Tales blog and all things website, both here and at HM Event Promotions (another micro venture that I created, in 2019, to help to promote others’ service or products and events). If you have not yet done so, do subscribe to each of these and, that way, you’ll receive blog updates into your email inbox.

You might also be mindful of my Newsletter “The Whisper”, which I began to send out in January 2021 … this will be revisited once I have all else in flow and working smoothly. This will include all processes being up to date with specially approved affiliate partnership agreements, which I have set up with a few select companies and professionals, for referrals to their services etc, as well as what I am doing.

Finally, there is the “Talking Hearts” podcast, which is sitting quietly in the wings and awaits its turn for focused attention. There are at least 30 podcast episodes to listen to, if you would like to hear a few spontaneous thoughts, a contrast to reading blogposts. I would love to receive five star reviews on any of the platforms where you listen to podcasts, if you would like to add yours to “Talking Hearts”. If you click here, you will be taken to Spotify, for example. Apparently great reviews are the things that help podcasts to become recognised and to gain traction, too, so the more the merrier, I hear!

If you are reading this blogpost via email, you might like to pop across to the site itself, to share some of your thoughts in the comments section below this post. If you are reading this on WordPress, do feel free to let me know that you’re here and share your thoughts.

I would love to end this little catch up with a special New Year message for you, from our hearts and home to yours. It was shared on TikTok and I have downloaded the video to share here as well.

May your year be everything that you have been working positively towards and may blessings flow towards you and your loved ones in 2024.

Happy New Year, EveryOne.

I am so grateful for you and wish you all the very best in whatever you are up to!

♥️

Love,

Holly x

PS. How about starting your own blog on WordPress? If I can do this, I am certain that you can too! Perhaps in 2024, we might have a get together, where I can show you how I did it. Let me know in the comments under the post, if that would interest you.