It was a dark and stormy night …
Yes, yes I know, not very original. Thing is, it actually was a dark and stormy night when we got the call at our house in Cornwall back in March this year; it was a neighbour of my father’s calling from Tenby in south Wales, to say that my old man had fallen over and been taken to hospital. So Annie and I did what you do—threw some things in a bag and got on the road for the five-hour drive. It was the third or fourth time we’d done exactly the same thing in the past few months, but this one turned out to be rather more serious. My father was not in a fit state to be left alone when he finally came out of hospital; my mother had died a year earlier, so it fell to us to look after him. He’s eighty-nine.
So, Cornwall to Tenby in one fell swoop. World turned upside down. I’ve been back to Cornwall briefly a couple of times to pick up stuff that we could have brought the first time if we hadn’t been in such a hurry to get here (the cat amongst other things … ) but other than that, we’ve lived in Tenby since March 2010. That has caused problems: my wife Annie had a catering business in Cornwall which was working quite nicely thank you, and that’s gone now. Luckily, most of my work happens online, so I can do it anywhere.
My reason for telling you all this? My website was way overdue for an overhaul. For years now, I’ve had some breezy, upbeat blurb on the Home page saying something like ‘Hi, I’m Paul Bradforth and I’m a photographer and web designer living in mid Cornwall’ and quite a bit more like that, telling you how great I am at what I do and please give me some of your money. I can’t do that anymore though, as I’m not living in mid anywhere, I’m living in south-west Wales and I don’t have a clue how long I’ll be here.
So I can’t really advertise myself like I used to. Since I last revamped my site, I’ve more or less given up professional photography, after forty years of it. Sure, I still do my own stuff, but I rarely take on a paying photographic job these days unless I just can’t resist it. On the other hand, I’m still firmly in the web design business, although I’ve found that, global though the Internet is, I tend to get more local jobs than anything else. Fine when I’m living in Cornwall where people know me but here in Tenby, I’m a relative stranger.
So for the time being at least, my site will become a repository for a collection of my thoughts, software reviews, some pretty pictures and my books. Oh, and I offer a copywriting and proofreading service too.
I hope you find something here to interest you.