The Creative Way (with Annie Ridout)

1 week ago | annieridout.substack.com | Annie Ridout

For a few years, we didn’t leave the country. Perhaps we’d had enough adventures, what with leaving London for the countryside and building a brand new community around us, only to return to the city two years later to start anew, again. But after a lucrative January, I decided to book a few holidays - one to Ireland, to the birthplace of my grandmother, and one to Paris. My older two children have spent about four years asking to go to Paris.

1 week ago | annieridout.substack.com | Annie Ridout

You know that classic story about getting out on the wrong side of bed? And how everything seems to go wrong that day? So, maybe you wake up, spill a glass of water on the bedside table, stub your toe on the way to the toilet, check your emails and there’s one telling you you didn’t get the job/part/role/place etc? Well, there’s no such thing as getting out on the wrong side of the bed. And you get to decide how the day will unravel. Of course, there are hard days. Unbearable days.

1 week ago | annieridout.substack.com | Annie Ridout

It’s 2005, I’m in my first year of university - studying English at Sussex - and there’s an option to do a module on feminism. Until now, I’ve not thought much about feminism. I’ve felt equal to my peers; drunk pints with the boys; dressed up with the girls; done well in my GCSEs and A-Levels and got a place at a good university. What is there to complain about? Where is the gender inequality?

2 weeks ago | annieridout.substack.com | Annie Ridout

When my first book - The Freelance Mum - was published, in 2019, I thought I was off. Now, I was an author, that was my job and I would be an author until I died. I imagined moving into fiction, from non-fiction, and hopefully poetry - but other than that, my career trajectory was clear: authoring books. Only, publishing doesn’t always work like that.

2 weeks ago | annieridout.substack.com | Annie Ridout

It’s springtime, the sun is shining and I’m in love. We’ve just moved to the countryside and in our English country garden, there are roses and montbretia; peonies and the greenest lawn. The chickens we saved from slaughter are clucking from the bottom of the garden and I’ve realised that I’m mad. I’m not sure if I’ve gone mad, or if it was always there but has somehow been triggered since this move. I want to be here. I want to be with my boyfriend who I met just seven months ago.