Welcome. Thanks for coming!

My name is Sam and I live in northern New South Wales with my partner and our three kids. I think of myself as a writer yet have failed to write anything of note since 2013 when I blogged about having breast cancer. But in the face of the global pandemic, inspiration has struck again: severe trauma is my muse, it seems. I will be document these unique and strange times through a lens that’s admittedly privileged, but also entertaining (I hope).

My home town of Mullumbimby is renowned for being the hippy capital of Australia, and some of the woo woo has rubbed off on me. For instance there are a couple of strong signs from the universe (see?) that this blog is meant to be.

Firstly, I have cybersquatted on yearofwonder.com for ages, having contemplated writing a journal about ‘wondering’: a cute but unsubstantial idea. Year of Wonders happens to be the title of an amazing novel by Geraldine Brooks about the bubonic plague being taken to a rural town on a bolt of cloth. The fact I had a home for the blog when the coronavirus-inspiration struck was unignorable Kismet.

Further encouragement came courtesy of a detailed astrological report I bought for myself back in 2018. Here’s an extract:

I really think you are going to contribute something unique and amazing to the world via your writing and a really niche project.

It doesn’t get much more niche than blogging about coronavirus, surely? The clincher for me, though, comes from the same report which states:

You can thrive through anything via this ability of yours to diary, memorize, story-tell…this is a bit odd but I just flashed on Samuel Pepys.

Now I studied English history, but still had to look up my fellow Sam and gasped in astonishment when I found Pepys’ diary:

…offers a richly detailed account of some of the most turbulent events of the nation’s history, including the coronation of King Charles II, the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. Pepys was an extremely observant commentator, and his diary is an important historical document.

If you’re still here with your credulity intact, I am delighted, and also a bit surprised. I would love for you to subscribe. I am far from prolific, so you will only get a notification every couple of weeks max. Failing that, I welcome any emails or comments and by ‘welcome’ I mean ‘happily mow down my children to see your feedback’. Clearly, claiming some kind of supernatural cyber squatting ability and positioning myself as a modern-day Pepys suggests something of a robust ego, so please do stoke it via a comment if you feel the urge.

Thanks again for coming. *catches kisses from audience*