🎢 If Life Were a Blank Page... what would you fill it with?

👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna. An adventurer, author of six books and Restless Mumma to three small humans. Each week I write about adventure, travel, daily chaos and the inner workings of my noggin’ 🧠⚡️ 🗺️

✌🏻You can check out past posts at the Restless Mumma homepage here.

Hello Restless Ones,

Coming at you over the weekend because four out of five in our household are sick as dawgs!! 🤒

So I’ve finally emerged from many days spent cuddling small snot-encrusted humans (and myself). I do believe I am still 50% bogies, but the percentage is in decline.

I’m taking all of this as the British Winter’s effort to pay us back for our attempts to sidestep it. How ruddy dare we?

The paywall is up at the top on this post because it’s a personal one.

If you’re a free subscriber — fear not and hang tight, the juicy details will all come out eventually when plans morph into action.

For the paid peeps - who I am now officially calling Restless Rebels (like it?) - it’s all yours.

A month of distance and reflection, as it turns out, can lead to great revelations.

✌🏻 Enjoy and catch you next week,

Anna xx

Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

If Life Were a Blank Page…

It’s late evening on the outskirts of Santa Maria, Cabo Verde and I’m sitting on the terrace of our hotel room. The air is warm and still. In the distance, I can hear the percussion of waves rolling onto shore. The long fingers of overhanging palm trees rustle and snippets of live music float from a nearby bar.

We’ve just put the kids to bed. All five of us are sleeping in one room, as has been the way for the past month. After completing the nightly ritual of mosquito swatting (an activity that’s both necessary and strangely satisfying), Jamie nips off to get us a couple of beers from the bar.

By the time he comes back, I’m sitting with a large notebook open — a blank double page spread across my lap.

‘Okay, my dear, what were you thinking?’ He asks, placing the drinks on the floor and then sliding the glass doors to the room closed until it’s just a crack. He takes a seat next to me as I look up at the sky.

The moon is not-quite full and the stars are out, but it’s overcast. There’s something mesmerising about watching the charcoal clouds drift, unhurried, across an expanse of inky black. I’d never thought that shades of black and grey could be so beautiful — but tonight they are.

‘Okay, J. I want to do something…’ I begin. ‘Can we imagine for a moment that this is our life?’ I gesture to the blank double page.

‘Okay…’

‘If we were, right now to take everything we know, everything we’re expected to do, the norms of what other people do and all that jazz… if we threw all of that out of the window and started from this blank page — what would we fill it with?’

It’s a big question.

The Right Time