My blog is 5 years old

I can't quite believe it - but my little blog is now 5 years old! And what better way to celebrate than by buying a ridiculously over sized balloon from Amazon and prancing around the garden (btw - buying a balloon when it's windy outside... not a great idea)

What started as a hobby all those years ago has now become such a huge part of my life.

It all started with me googling ways to remove gel nail varnish (a long and disastrous story for another day). I stumbled across so many blogs with hints and tips and consequently spent a lovely evening falling into a rabbit hole of blogs, twitter and instagram.

One though really caught my eye, Leah wrote about plus size fashion amongst other things and wow! Being plus size myself, it was amazing to see such a confident blogger wearing exactly what she liked and looking great. So for the next 6 months or so I stalked her blog and found as many other plus size bloggers as I could to follow.

In the back of my head, I kept thinking, I'd like to write about that, I could talk about this. So one day I just did. I'm sure like most bloggers, my early posts and photos were, shall we say, interesting? But you know what, I've kept them all live because at the time I loved them. And all of those early wonky photo blog posts help make the blog I have today.

And so, because there's nothing I like better than a list, here's the top 5 highlights of my blog.

Number 1 - Remember I mentioned Leah and other plus size bloggers? Meeting them in real life, becoming friends with them and working together makes this whole blogging thing real and worthwhile.

Number 2 - walking the catwalk at Style XL in 2015. This was such a scary and exciting day but so glad I did it, even if I did have a severe case of resting bitch face in most of the photos (tbh, I was concentrating on not falling off the stage).

Number 3 - sharing opportunities with family and friends. One highlight that comes to mind is being able to take my other half on a day out on the Watercress Line last year. A day riding steam trains? He was in his element.

Number 4 - confidence. Not just with going to events (years of working in the Civil Service and endless meetings and conferences helped sort that) but confidence with clothes and personal style. Generally just being me - a plus size, 50+ person finding her own style.

Number 5 - numbers. This seems an odd one. I know in the grand scheme of things, I'm a very little fish in a very big pond. But seeing viewing numbers and interactions rise over the years makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I'm doing ok.

To everybody that has read my ramblings online - a very big thank you. Here's to the next 5 years!

Thanks for reading

Cathy
xx