History of A London Life

A London Life has changed over time. Originally, it was set up as a personal blog, something for me to do during the pandemic and the worry of becoming a parent. But if has changed and become more general. Which, in a way, is positive. But I thought it would be nice to leave at least a trace of the original blog.

So, I have moved the original About section here and most of the original blog posts to a separate section called Blog (original).

A London Life (previously After Shoreditch…) is my blog. I will try and use it as a bit of a therapeutic exercise, as the last couple of years has been quite hard, but I promise it won't be filled with well-being stuff.

About me

I am Chris, a 44-year-old who lives in Clerkenwell with his partner E, a new(ish) baby V and a fat cat.

About the blog

At the very start of the pandemic, my partner and I had our first baby in April 2020. It was always going to be life-changing. But, having your first kid, late in life, in a pandemic, during lockdown down and being trapped in a tiny flat has been an experience…and not all good.

I thought I'd use the blog to try and record some of the experiences. I don't think I'll come up with anything genuinely profound or new, and I will not publicise it. However, if it's helpful to another new parent even in the slightest, that will be nice.

But don't worry, it's not all going to be heavy. I also want to write about the future. We are selling up our flats and moving, so you get to join the journey of two older people leaving trendy east London and moving to a less trendy area of London. I will also include some posts about raising a little girl; I have a whole series of posts on the brilliant CBeebies, which genuinely saved us.

I have tried to explain my reasoning for starting the blog in my first post here.