Running two businesses should feel empowering, but for me it often feels like juggling glass balls while walking through fog. Each business has two or more linked email addresses, its own accounts, its own tools, and its own subscriptions. Many of those subscriptions overlap, so I move between them constantly, switching from one login to …
For about eight years, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) was something I lived with quietly. It was there, but it wasn’t overly dramatic. It behaved itself most of the time, it showed up in small ways, a rash on the tops of my feet if I was in sunlight too long (sometimes as little as …
Severe ME was at the centre of a major ME Foggy Dog 2024-25 advocacy effort when 5,220 people with M.E signed an open letter demanding an NHS protocol. It was one of the largest collective actions from the M.E community in recent years (it’s very hard to reach people within our community – thanks to …
When I first started M.E advocacy back in 2014, I didn’t spend much time thinking about severity levels. I knew the basics, mild, moderate, severe, very severe, and I learned the familiar statistics that charities and research groups have used for years: around 25% mild and 25% severe or very severe. Those numbers have stayed …
Last week was the worst week for me health-wise, for a long time, for a variety of reasons! Monday, I badly twisted my ankle on a pot hole in a car park in Guildford (see the innocuous looking pot hole above!), I opted to self-manage at home due to the 30+ degree heat. I am …
Stepping away from my day‑to‑day life for four days shouldn’t feel like preparing for a marathon, but when you’ve lived with M.E for nearly two decades, even the gentlest birthday‑year adventure comes with its own side dish of realism, turning every small plan into a carefully orchestrated operation. After 12 years of advocacy and 20 …
Burnout has been the recurring theme in every collaborative CEO/founder meeting I’ve sat in on over the past month or so (or the “third sector”, “VCSE”, “nonprofit world”… whatever we’re calling it this week). Not as a passing comment, but as a steady undercurrent. You can hear it in the tone of voices, in the pauses, …
I’ve always been slow to join the party, I’m always 6 months to 2 years behind the latest trend (case in point, I became a fan of Bros in January 1992…….Bros fans – See what I mean?!) . My initial intentional use of A.I. (Artifical Intelligence) in 2024 was no different. Chat GPT had been …
I want to be clear at the outset about what this piece is, and what it is not. Who Gets a Seat at the Table? Lobbying and Access in the UK is not a commentary on global politics, international relations, or any particular social issue. Like most people, I hold strong opinions in my private …
This blog is an informal write‑up of my recent trip to watch a Northampton Saints rugby match. It’s taken me a full week to have enough energy to write it, which probably tells you everything you need to know before you start reading. Before anything else, I need to be clear that I rested as …
