I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with Artiscado for years now.
The name came from a flippant comment I made about wanting to grow ‘artisan avocados’ in the UK; hydroponically, on top of skyscrapers and then sell them to restaurants in London. I couldn’t understand why we needed to import avocados when we could find a way to grow our own. Naive I know; this was while I worked for a luxury appliance brand and after a trip to New Zealand where I somehow ended up learning a lot about avocado farming. Realistically though, I knew nothing about food production.
Anyway, back to ‘Artisan Avocados’…
I just really liked the phrase, to be honest. I liked what it suggested…something simple, done with care. I knew that at some point I’d use it for something. Then my best friend shortened it to “Artiscado” and I’ve just… sort of sat on it ever since.
This space used to be a place for me to talk about things that mattered. Issues. Ideas. Things that felt important or current or worth saying out loud. It’s not that I stopped caring — I still practice a lot of it now. Low-tox living (as much as you can with two small boys), supporting causes that matter to me, thinking about the kind of world we’re raising our children in.
But something shifted. I didn’t grow tired of it… I just lost my words.
I don’t know exactly when that happened, but I started to feel like I didn’t want to share what I believed in anymore. Not because it wasn’t important, of course it was but because I wasn’t doing anything beyond talking about it. I wasn’t protesting, I wasn’t lobbying… I was just giving my opinion. And for some reason, that started to feel like noise. So I stopped.
I went quiet. Wrapped myself up in my own little world. My world became my life with my two small babies. My boys. My husband. That was it. And even now… I’m not entirely sure I’ve found my voice again.
Life changed a lot around that time. In 2022, I became a mum. And I completely lost myself in it but in a way that felt right. I loved it. I still love it. Even with a birth story that still terrifies me, I knew I was meant to be a mum. Then I got pregnant with baby number two… and everything changed.
There was so my loss in my family. Grief. And alongside that, there was behaviour directed towards me that I never imagined I’d experience. It made me shrink. It made me question myself. It made me feel like I had somehow become someone who wasn’t worthy — of my unborn child.
I did deserve my baby. I know that. I knew that then, deep down. But it was a rough nine months.
A high risk pregnancy, layered with emotional stress, where I pushed my own feelings aside and allowed other people to take centre stage in what was supposed to be my story. I still feel angry about that, if I’m honest. But I think it also shows I’m not the person they made me out to be. After my second son was born, there were moments of bliss. A newborn and my 14-month-old — my two boys.
But physically, I was recovering from two caesareans in quick succession. Emotionally… I was already running on empty. And then came words that no one should ever hear especially not from someone they trusted, had grown up with..
That I shouldn’t have had another baby.
That my children would be better off if I had died.
Even writing that feels surreal.
Unless you’ve been through an emergency caesarean — let alone two within 14 months — you don’t really understand what recovery looks like. It’s major abdominal surgery. And then you’re expected to get up, care for a newborn, breastfeed, wake through the night, lift them in and out of a bassinet… all while injecting yourself with blood thinners for weeks.
And at the same time, you still have a toddler, still a baby really — who needs you just as much. My darling baby. So yes, I asked for help. And I don’t regret that.
But that period… it sent me into a bit of a rabbit hole. Hormones, trauma, sleep deprivation, guilt, fear…all mixed together. And it led to postnatal depression. I didn’t take medication. Not because I don’t believe in it, but because I felt like I needed to find another way through.
So I did all the work….Therapy. Changing how I ate. Moving my body. Supplements. Talking about the hard bits. And in the middle of all that, I kept showing up.
I taught my 18-month-old the alphabet, phonics, numbers. I played constantly. I breastfed, weaned, changed endless nappies. I navigated big emotions (and we still have plenty of those). I apologised when I got it wrong. I tried again. I created the kind of childhood I wanted for them — simple, joyful, full of love. The kind with parties at home or in the garden, not for Instagram, but for them. For us. I cried a lot and I’ve felt like a failure everyday but I’ve kept moving forward everyday.
And now I have two boys who are thriving. Loving. Social. Completely wild.
They push every boundary I have. They exhaust me. They make me question myself daily.
But as I sit here writing this… I’m proud.
Not because I did it perfectly. But because I kept going.
After just over three years at home with them, I made the decision to send them to preschool. Just two days a week — one day together, one day apart. It gave them something… but it also gave me something back.
Space.
And in that space, something shifted again.
I went back to work, it’s just two days a week and my brain has started working differently. Or maybe just… working again. I’ve started thinking more creatively. More openly. More like myself.
I started to feel like a creative again.
Like an “artisan,” in a way.
And that’s when Artiscado came back.
Maybe it was never really about avocados.
Maybe it was always about this — taking something simple, something ordinary, and giving it care. Attention. Meaning.
For a long time, I thought I’d lost my voice.
Maybe I just needed to live a little more before I could find it again.
This feels like a beginning.