It's a cold, wet and miserable Thursday morning. The kids are at school and hubby's in his office. I've been to the gym, tidied the kitchen and put a wash on. It's the calm before the storm. On Monday I start my journey back into the world of being a working woman. I haven't worked for five and a half years and I can't quite put into words how strange it feels to be starting out again. Before my current career break I have always worked. I began at the age of 11 when I was offered a job picking daffodil bulbs in the field of a local farmer. The glamour! It was at the age of 13 that I found my ideal job working as a Saturday-girl in a clothes shop, earning £10 a day which was always spent during my lunch hour on a top from New Look. Since then I've worked in pubs, restaurants and even a very brief and unenjoyable role at a large home improvement retailer. (That could definitely be a future blog post on its own!)
This was all before I started out in my chosen career as a PR professional. Most of my experience has been in the events industry, and before you imagine me hobnobbing with the Ab Fab types let me set you straight when I say 'events'. I mean business to business events for often male dominated industries. However, I loved it. I loved the thrill of seeing something I'd written in print. Or facilitating an interview that led to a positive industry article. Writing and re-writing press releases until their pitch was perfect was actually fun. Even putting out fires when someone had done or said something they shouldn't was thrilling. When I look back on that person I can hardly believe it was me. Putting on a suit. Presenting to a room filled with a hundred people. Answering questions. Offering my professional opinion! Currently, the only opinions I'm asked for on a regular basis are which Paw Patrol character would I chose to be, if I absolutely had to chose? Or maybe what's the best way to get dried PVA glue off of an expensive school coat. I still don't know the answer to that one, so if anyone is reading this and has an answer I would love to know. I do know that it is a mistake to buy your four year old daughter a Joules coat for school however, lesson learnt.
So as I mentioned, Monday is the start of my journey as I begin my Digital Mums Social Media Management Associate Course. As nervous as I am, I am also ridiculously excited. When a friend of a friend mentioned Digital Mums to me I couldn't believe how perfect it sounded. It was genuinely like someone had listened to me moaning on and on about the fact that I didn't know what to do with myself and in order to shut me up had created a course just for me. Its for Mums with experience that lack the confidence to just put themselves back out there. It's going to bring me right up to date on social media, an industry that doesn't stand still for a second, and give me the skills I need to get back into doing what I love. Wish me luck folks xx
