My Advent Calendar - Notebook

I absolutely loved working with Kristina on this feature. She had an idea to create an advent calendar with a charity twist - behind every door is a 50p contribution to a charity. The premise supports 24 incredible charities, all carefully selected by Kristina and covering good causes in various areas, from children in need to animals in need and everything in between.

Toddler's Tantrums - Bella

If only there were just tantrums... poor Grace was dismissed by GPs as going through a 'tantrum phase'. Sadly, what her change of behaviour actually revealed was the utterly devastating Batten's disease. Mum Izabela shares her story in Bella magazine this week. It's heartbreaking, but if her drug trial starts soon they hope to ward off and delay the onset of the debilitating symptoms.

Told I couldn't conceive - Bella Magazine

Awwwww I love this family! Beautiful Maria and her beautiful children. Maria suffers from endometriosis and could not conceive again after the birth of her first child, Eleanor. She longed for a big, loud, happy family... Years went by and she booked in for a hysterectomy, ready to admit that it was not to be. But then... along came

Little Miss Sunshine - Best

Here's a story to make you smile... it's Little Miss Sunshine, a real life yellow wearing, sunshine loving smiler, Ella. It all began at Ella's wedding, where she wore touches of yellow to pay tribute to her late dad, who loved the colour. Now, yellow is Ella's whole life and she wears it well! You can follow Ella's journeys around the sun on Insta here.

I'm still Lorayne... Best Magazine

The Restaurant That Makes Mistakes took a group of people with varying forms of dementia and gave them the opportunity to work in a restaurant - the results are on 4od now. It's a great concept for a show and an experiment - incredible people have been written off as incapable of working but the show asks what happens if you give people responsibility again? Lorayne was one of the participants and has early onset frontotemporal dementia.

We went on a family walk... Bella

With Father's Day ahead this weekend, I've been writing about amazing dads. Men who have been through the most heartbreaking of circumstances, but come out stronger for those around them. Men who are not afraid to talk about mental health and understand that true strength is in talking about our fragility. Men like Mark, who went out for a walk with his wife and toddler and came home a widow and a single dad.