checking in – and a special Mother’s Day offer on the book

Well hello. Geez, been a while huh? I’ve received quite a few emails recently from some of you, asking what I’ve been up to lately – and how Coco is going, now that we’re well and truly back from our global adventure. Given that so many of you ‘travelled’ with us every week for over a year not that long ago (and before that, around Sydney for another year), I thought it was high time I checked in with an update on life post-52 Suburbs Around the World.

On my side of things, I’ve been busy working on various photographic jobs. I really miss working on my own projects but I feel incredibly lucky right now just to be able to earn my living doing something I absolutely love. I have a couple more projects in me for sure, but right now, it’s about building on the last four years of hard, self-initiated work.

Speaking of building, I’m also loving the fact that these jobs offer so much diversity. One day I’m out on a building site chatting up some burly blokes …

The next, I’m in a studio, dealing with lights and far from burly blokedom …

I’m learning something new every week in a photographic sense and absolutely loving it. May it continue thus!

So that’s me, in a very small nutshell. And Coco? She’s settled back into school life pretty much as if she never left it. (Although remember my frantic worries about her lack of schooling when we were travelling? And how I quipped that she could always get a maths tutor when we got back if she needed one? Well, she now has a maths tutor. Exy but Coco practically skips on her way to see her so I can hardly complain.)

When we started the project in January 2012, Coco was eight and a half. She’s now about to turn eleven. Eleven! Has she changed much? Not really. She’s still the most delightful, kind and funny kid anyone could wish for. Just a bit taller (photographed on the beach for her friend Elyse’s birthday) …

Coco and Elyse :: 1

Coco and Elyse :: 2

Coco and Elyse :: 3

Coco and Elyse :: 4

Coco and Elyse :: 5

Extra-special Mother’s Day book offer

I was at a bookstore on the weekend where my book is stocked and the lovely man behind the counter told me that the day before a gentleman had bought my book for his mum who’s just been diagnosed with cancer. He thought it would help to give her a break from her new reality. I went from, busy-busy with my Saturday morning list of things to do, to standing totally still, feeling like I was about to burst into tears – not only at how touched I was at the thought of his poor mum enjoying my book but also because my dear old mum is no longer around. I adored my mum and would do pretty much anything to have her back (she never met Coco – how unfair is that? Blah.)

Anyway, if I can’t give my own mum a gift, I can give a gift to other amazing mums – for the next week until the moment the first glass of something or other is raised at Sunday lunchtime, my 52 Suburbs Around the World book will be 20% less exy – just $63 (and will come with a set of postcards and a little note from Coco and I).

Go here if you wish to purchase – and yes, Happy Mother’s Day to you (and my mum). I hope you are adored and cherished as you should be.

Maureen Anne Hawson – my mum