At the beginning of 2026 I broke with tradition and actually made some New Year's resolutions. I was absolutely EXHAUSTED with social media. Places that had started out as platforms for human connection had morphed into hotbeds of horror. Instagram and FB are now just full of noise, hate, bad news, AI slop and constant ads for something called Wall Pilates or Tai Chi Walking!! (WTH? … your algorithm may vary!). I could barely find the stuff I liked anymore but I still managed to waste precious time doomscrolling.

On LinkedIn it's lots of shouting into the void - myself included - and increasingly more AI-generated posts that made my eyes itch. So I made a decision to take a step back from most of my social media accounts. I revamped my newsletter, making sure I concentrated more on human connection and did my best to stay away from a 'ra-ra salesy' tone.

But I had nowhere to share my personal work that really felt like me. I tried Substack but got confused by all the options and hated that these days EVERYTHING is focused on monetizing, with constant reminders to subscribe or upgrade.

Then I started to see people talking about digital gardens - and creating personal spaces online, like the good old days of blogging. I saw some really great examples and decided that's what I wanted to do. Create my own little space away from all the noise. I loved the digital garden concept and I toyed with lots of gardening metaphors to try to find a thread to describe what my little space was going to be about - coming up with in the undergrowth, amongst the weeds (because I wanted to show the messy stuff) - but they didn't 100% sit right.

And then one day, after a trip to the Feria Internacional del Mar here in Las Palmas, the nautical theme pinged into my head. I love the port, it's one of the reasons I moved here, I can see it from my flat, and as I wanted this personal space to be somewhere quiet to tinker away, well, Port in a Storm just WORKED. As the daughter of a Maritime Pilot it fit perfectly with my family's connection to the sea too.

So that's what this is. Not a feed, not a platform, nothing to optimise, no likes, shares, reels or stories (well there will be stories.. but of a different kind). Yes it's a wee bit monetized as there are prints in the boathouse if you'd like one - and at some point I will start a newsletter just to let you know when there's something interesting afoot, but nobody's going to chase you to subscribe or upgrade.

Just a port: the comings and goings of my little studio by the sea. I'll be logging the interesting things that dock, and the bits of driftwood that wash up along the way!