My first digital detox was in 2014, a few months after I diagnosed myself as a social media / smartphone addict.

I'd heard my husband and eldest daughter complain that I wasn't fully present. That I was permanently attached to my phone whenever I wasn't working.

I'd pick it up constantly.

I was always scrolling.

The last thing I did at night, the first thing I did in the morning was scroll my drugs of choice - Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

It was a horrible way to live. For me. For my husband. For our kids.

I knew it wasn't healthy but couldn't stop myself.

As I'm an "all or nothing" person I decided to go cold turkey whilst on a family holiday to France in August of 2014.

I switched the WiFi and mobile data off on my phone as I boarded the plane in London. And I didn't switch it back on until I got back home over 2 weeks later.

I did a complete digital detox.

And I learnt so much about myself. About this dirty habit. About the life I wanted, for myself,...

It was going to be perfect. A two week family holiday to switch off and reconnect. Everything was planned down to the last meal, board game and walk.

Until the one thing I hadn't planned happened.

International travel is still tricky so August 2021 saw us taking another local holiday. But I can't really complain as we live on the tropical island of Mauritius and, even though this was the peak of winter, the weather was still preferable to a UK summer!

We booked the first week as a winter / mountain break in the hills of Chamarel. Our cottage was in the middle of nowhere, with a 360º view of nature and greenery all around.

The second week was a "summer" / beach break on the coast in Pointe aux Biches. Our apartment was right on the seafront and had the most stunning ocean views.

I had figured out meals, indoor games and outdoor games, places to visit, things to do.

I decided to do a complete digital detox for the full two weeks and warned friends, family and...

I feel like I’m not good enough.

There I’ve said it. And not just in my head.

I mentioned this recently to a close friend of mine and she was shocked that I should feel this way.

But you see pretty much all of us are feeling not good enough at one point or another.

I’m in a couple of online business groups and it never ceases to amaze me that these incredible women could also be crippled with self-doubt too.

I’m talking women who run their own successful 7 figure businesses. Women who others look up to for guidance and inspiration.

Which made me realise - we all go through the whole “I’m not good enough” negative self-talk at one point or another.

Maybe yours is “I’m not good enough at my job” or “I’m not a good enough mum” or “I’m not a good enough wife / daughter / friend / sister”.

For me it varies from day to day, but my most common ones are:

“I’m not a good enough...

I physically shuddered as my 13 year old daughter's teacher accused me of bad parenting.

The reason?

Because I told her I would rather my daughter failed academically than destroy her mental health by spending all her waking hours on school work.

Apparently I was not doing a good job at parenting because I refused to let my 13 year old (who is only in Year 9) spend 2-3 hours on homework every day.

Bearing in mind her school day starts at 6.50am when she leaves for the bus, and ends at 4pm when she gets home.

I set a top limit of 1.5 hours a day to maintain balance and avoid burnout.

Yet this makes me a bad parent.

(We have since changed our schooling set-up for our daughter as this was a recipe for breakdown.)

It still astounds me that we are in this situation with everything we know and have experienced over the last few years.

Suicides, burnouts, breakdowns, cutting, increase in alcohol and substance dependency, eating disorders and other mental health issues.

Why are we...

In 2015 our family moved from a 4 bedroom house in London to a 4 bedroom house in Mauritius.

Our new house was 5 times the size of our London home and cost 1/3 of our London rent. Included in our Mauritian rent were a pest control team, a pool guy and a gardening team.

The cost of our new house was very low and initially it was glorious to live in the kind of luxury we'd only ever dreamed of previously.

As we settled into our new life on the island we became aware of the extreme poverty that others were living in.

Just over a mile away families lived in tin shacks, "built" on mud, despite the extreme weather conditions.

When it rained - which it does a lot on a tropical island - these homes get soaked and the surrounding areas turned into mud baths.

But that is nothing in comparison to the suffocating heat in these tin cans when it's 35+ºC and 80% humidity in the shade.

My husband, Ben, and I vowed that our kids wouldn't turn into rich brats who think the world owes them some...

Thunder thighs. Chunky. Dumpy. Fat knees. Full of cellulite.

These are just some of the nasty things I or other people have said about my legs in the past.

Which led to me not wearing shorts for 10 years, despite living on the French Riviera for 4 of those years.

I was so wrapped up with feeling "less than" with regard to my legs that I chose to be uncomfortable and hot in alternative clothes rather than wear shorts.

That ended 3 months before my 40th birthday when we left London and moved to Mauritius, a tropical island where it is more or less summer all year round, and shorts are pretty much an obligatory wardrobe staple.

So after 10 years of no shorts, and at my legs' most wobbliest yet I started wearing shorts again.

Fast forward 5 years and I wear shorts most days without thinking about it now.

My legs have never looked "worse" in that middle age has drastically increased the cellulite to non-cellulite ratio, and serious wobble has set in, despite doing more sport now than...

I'm going to preface this blog post by acknowledging just how lucky I am.

Lucky to still have both my parents.

Lucky to have had the most incredible relationship with them for the past 45 years.

Lucky that they are still the ones to look after me rather than the other way round.

Now that's been said, here's the thing.

I miss my mum and dad.

The last time I saw them was in late October 2019.

It's the longest I've ever gone without seeing them, and bloody hell it's been / it is hard.

I lived in Nice, France for 12 years and thanks to easyjet we were able to see each other every 2-3 months in general.

Then when I moved to London I was just an hour down the road from them.

We saw each other for about a day every month, more or less.

My mum and dad were our support team when I had our youngest daughter, Clémence, in London in 2012.

My dad drove me, whilst in full-on labour, to hospital, through the rush hour streets of London.

My mum stayed with me and Ben right through...

In early 2014 I was completely addicted to social media and my phone. To the detriment of my health and my relationships.

A reading challenge that year changed all that and saved me from my social media addiction, and my life is so very different now.

Yesterday I finished reading my 30th book this year.

Last year I read 70 books in the year. A record for me (it's usually 50 something).

I'm not sharing this to brag, to compete or to make you feel bad.

Instead I want to share my reading story with you...

I grew up in a house of bookworms.

I learnt to read early and Saturday mornings were spent at the local library.

The biggest treat before going on our yearly holiday was a visit to the bookshop to buy a brand new book for the journey.

In primary school one Christmas I totally missed my call to go on stage in the nativity play as I was engrossed in a book backstage. My poor parents sat through an hour of kids reenacting the nativity story without my starring role - being in the...