Friends and readers,

The time has come for me to do what I have been hinting I’ll do for a while now. It’s time to say a fond farewell to Soup du Journalism. But it’s absolutely not all over.

I started Soup du Journalism when I started training to become a journalist in 2012, full of feverish excitement and shorthand and equipped with a notepad and a dictaphone and boundless enthusiasm. I wrote about the trials and tribulations of learning all those bloody Teeline special outlines, about going to court, about everything that filled those many weeks of utter, utter joy. I carried on writing about issues in journalism and building my portfolio with reviews, interviews and opinion pieces. But slowly, I had less and less to say. And now feels like the right time to lay this blog, in its current guise, to rest.

But I’m not going anywhere. You may have noticed that my URL has changed. This blog is currently a place of transition. With Soup du Journalism moving out, Hello Hygge is moving in to start a happy life in its place. Please excuse the mess while I sort out themes and colours and content and imagery and all other sorts of practicalities, but we’ll get there in the end.

Hello Hygge is my new blog project. ‘Hygge’ is the Danish concept of ‘cosiness’. I have always enjoyed nesting in comfortable spaces, and when I first came across this concept, it clicked into place that what I strive for in life is this magical hygge. In my research, I have found that no two people have exactly the same idea of hygge, but instead it always comes back to this root sense of cosiness. And I want to make somewhere on the internet which is a space of hygge.

For those of you who have been following my blog for the last three years (I know, don’t even), please don’t think there’s nothing for you anymore. I am still going to be writing reviews and interviews and opinion pieces. But this time, there’s a focus and a purpose. Broadly, Hello Hygge will fall into the ‘lifestyle blog’ category, and I’ll be writing about travel, home, food, culture and design, with the common theme of hygge throughout. This is my personal hygge, but hopefully some of it will resonate with you too. It’s going to take advantage of multimedia and interaction in a way Soup du Journalism never did, and everyone is welcome here.

I’m truly, truly grateful for all of the lovely comments I’ve had about Soup du Journalism over the years, and all my journalism content will still have a home here. But now, with all the affection in the world, it’s time for me to throw a few scatter cushions around, light a scented candle or two, flick on the fairy lights and say Hello Hygge.

PS – After I posted this, I noticed that this is post #156 for Soup du Journalism. 156 is one of my favourite songs by a fantastic band, Mew… and they’re Danish. Don’t you just love goodbyes?