Um, hi!

So apparently I haven’t written anything since May last year, which is hilarious, in the way people say something is hilarious when it really isn’t.

As we sit here on this, St Valentine’s Day, I will admit there’s always been the temptation to turn this into a dating newsletter, because even people who say they don’t want to hear about it, want to hear about it, and there is always content when you’re actively dating, because the modern dating world is like trying to jelly wrestle an alligator: it looks fun, but it’s slippery and dangerous and actively trying to claw out your eyes, or put you in a death roll.

So this is not a dating newsletter, but it isn’t a coincidence that I stopped writing in May, because in May, I thought I met Someone, like capital ‘s’ someone, because I was a happy little clam. We had so much fun, I was so much fun.

Anyway, it turned out he was having fun with heaps of other women and finding this out was his birthday gift to me.

It’s the thought that counts.

Never trust anyone who tells you that maybe all the personal belongings you left in their bedroom are missing because they have ADHD and might have put them in the fridge by accident. I have ADHD and I can tell you that yes, I have found things in the fridge before that should not have been in the fridge, but never all of someone else’s worldly possessions. Also, you’ll probably catch them “finding” your things hidden in a drawer and not in the fridge at all.

The world’s worst singing telegram knocked on his door a few hours later and confirmed my suspicions, so happy birthday to me.

Anyway, I stopped writing because I was too busy skipping with him through what I thought was a field of flowers, and then I didn’t start writing again because I was coming to grips with the fact that I’d actually been skipping through giant clump of poison ivy.

Speaking of writing, he’s actually got quite a way with words himself, as this section of his recent dating profile shows:

I’ll know we vibe on a date if …

we can joke about anything, laugh like it’s nothing but still be able to talk about what’s important.

Ok, Hallmark.

I hope whoever’s next has a really good sense of humour.

So here we are: 2025.

I like the way ‘2025’ looks, which leads me to believe it’s going to be a good year. Round, even (even though it’s odd), bold. A year of adventure, a year of staring at the horizon, shielding your eyes from how bright the future is, baby!

I don’t make resolutions anymore, because I don’t keep them, instead I made a bucket list for 2025:

• Go on a road trip to the Tamworth Country Music Festival with Tegan

• Have a loose ladies night in Sydney with Macarena and the McDonald sisters

• Go to a naked beach, naked. Have a picnic!

• Make some little monsters out of air dry clay

• Take more photos on film

• Teach myself astrophotography

• Get a tattoo and eat some noodles with 아조슈

• Get a tattoo with Nic, on our ‘No Boys Allowed’ Paul Kelly/Jason Isbell trip

• Eat weird food with Kristen and Brooke, which involves some kind of dragon-shaped food deliver train, with a moat made of jelly

• Spend a weekend in the Blue Mountains, including a day spa, with Nic

• Spend a week with Bronte

• Sit on a beach and watch the sun rise with K

• Take at least one pottery lesson with Eve

• Watch my nephew play cricket and my niece in a cheer comp

• Line dance … IN PUBLIC!

• Go to my first rodeo

• Read 52 books

• Visit Sarah and Jacob and day drink with them, even if it damages my liver.

Phew! What a list!

On a day which celebrates love, something I really love is Formula 1. It ticks so many of my love boxes: It’s loud, it’s competitive, it’s gossipy, it’s tense, its rules and regulations are so complicated that it’s entirely possible to have no idea what you’re talking about but feel comfortable to share said baseless opinions with large groups of people, because as long as you say it loudly and with gravitas, no-one will question you, because none of them have any idea what’s going on either!

There’s 30 days until the 2025 Formula 1 season kicks off, so while this isn’t a dating newsletter, for the next month, it’s a Formula 1 one. A couple of times a week, I’ll be sliding into your inbox, maybe into your junk mail, you naughty thing, taking you through each of the teams in this year’s epic battle. It’ll be fun, I promise. Even if you’re Sarah.

I hope you have a lovely day loving yourself, loving someone else, loving something that gets your pulse racing.