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5 days ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
It’s May. That means I’ve reached the month of my 40th birthday and I’m in the mood to celebrate. It’s not my birthday until the end of the month, but the celebrations will, I hope, last for a while. So often I see/hear people lamenting the ageing process or expressing their terror or fear of turning a new number, especially if it begins with a different digit and ends in a 0. But I don’t feel that way. There’s no terror, there’s no fear.
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1 week ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -48:06Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. From time to time, I interview a podcast guest and we really, truly just click. The conversation flows (usually with me over-excitedly interrupting too often) and we could continuing talking for far longer than the allotted time. That’s exactly what happened when I interviewed Lara Hayward several weeks back.
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1 week ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
It has been a strange couple of weeks. A significant portion of the strangeness can be attributed to some challenging goings on in my teaching job which have meant that for the first time in my life I have been striking. Itās not a nice situation. If youāve been reading my ramblings for a while, you will know that alongside my interior design business - Hannah Ashe Interior Design - I have a part-time teaching job. Perhaps one day I will be able to leave the teaching behind, for good.
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3 weeks ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
I bought a pond. Well, a galvanised steel tub that is going to become a tiny pond once I’ve finished researching how to set it up and which plants will work best to attract the wildlife I want to encourage in my garden. Two things inspired this. Firstly, I recently read ’s excellent new book One Garden Against the World and in case you don’t know Kate’s work, she is passionate about encouraging people to install ponds in their gardens.
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1 month ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -39:16Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Helen Ridley is an illustrator, specialising in live illustration, who has carved out a successful career by following her instincts and doing what feels right. I found Helen’s mindset to be inspirational and I hope that, you too, will be interested in her methodical, yet highly creative approach to freelance life following redundancy.
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1 month ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
Time is a gift. I learn this to be true more and more as I get older though it is fair to say that as a 39-year old, child-free woman I have a reasonable amount of it. Especially since leaving a full-time job (despite now having my finger in all of the pies, work wise). But, that said, I have come to a point in my life where I prioritise gifting myself pockets of time. It allows me to be me.
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1 month ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
Former teachers’ career change stories will always be of special interest to me due to my own educational background. For Hannah Miller, it has been more than 10 years since she left the classroom to become a coach and I was delighted to have the opportunity to discover more about her career journey. Hannah and I talk about the challenges of leaving teaching, bizarre transferable skills and Hannah’s path to shaping a career that works for her current season of life.
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1 month ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
Iâm away for a long weekend with my husband to celebrate his birthday. Weâd read and heard lots of good things about Lille but had never visited despite it being easy for us to get to via a direct Eurostar train from London. Iâm struck once again by the positive impact travel can have on us. Only 90 minutes by train from London and we are in this city which provides so much to learn about, experience and challenge us culturally.
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1 month ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe |Lucy Pearson
A burst of thought from me today as a result of a series of individually small things that have collectively meant a lot and reminded me why I love to create. In creative spheres, it’s fair to say that a lot of the time and effort we put in is not matched by financial gain. In fact, mostly we receive nothing monetary for our efforts. But, undeterred, we keep going. We continue to make, to write, to draw, to fulfil our creative needs in whatever ways suit us best.
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1 month ago | 
chezhanny.substack.com | Hannah Ashe
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -36:12Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Fashion and textile designer Carla Bentele achieved her dream of moving to London and working in the fashion industry, but along came the pandemic and a family, and Carla’s priorities and dreams changed. I had the privilege of chatting with Carla to hear about the joys and the struggles of redundancy, trying new things, moving to Todmorden and launching a business all whilst juggling family life.
