As much as I am raring to get on with 2023, for all it promises to bring, there’s a lot to look back on from 2022. I am the type to feel like I never achieve anything, despite the masses that I do, so allow me to indulge my ego a little, and tell you what I have been up to.
January was a bit of a whirlwind for me. After the shock closing of AVN Stars, I chose to take a break from content creation and focus on rebuilding my life post lockdowns. I considered re-joining on another platform, and as much as online fun works for a lot of people, it’s not for me. I have so much else going on in my life, that content creation and the need to constantly be available for users to chat with, was only ever going to work during lockdowns. I do miss the fans and friends I made there though. Some of you have kept in touch – even joined me for real time play, which has been so fantastic.
However, the big whopper of an event the happened in January, was the surprise inheritance of a huge amount of dungeon equipment. Having met Miss Kim Rub in January to talk about some of my anxieties with session planning and work out how to overcome them (what a difference that made!), I got a call a few days later, to ask if I wanted to take on a retiring Domme’s collection. Of course, I said Yes. What followed were two frantic days of trying to organise transportation and storage for an unknown amount of fetish equipment and furniture. I really should have recorded some of the conversations I had with the removal companies, and I tried to get quotes and not reveal what they’d be transporting until I had confirmed they were suitable. I cannot thank Kim Rub enough for introducing me, or to Miss Hyde and Mister James for helping me pack up all the canes, mirrors, outfits, and plethora of furniture early that Saturday morning.
And that’s how I found myself with a container full of BDSM furniture and equipment, in varying states of needing repair and being ready to use. Sadly, currently still untouched for the most part. I was convinced I would be able to set up a small space in Cardiff as a temporary play space. Sadly, I’m really struggling to do this by the book.
That’s not to say all hope is lost with me opening a play space in Cardiff. I spent a huge amount of time this year working on a business plan for a multiuse space for play and fetish events. I went down avenues with potential business partners and investors, each requiring their own time investment as I explored how it could work and if those persons were suitable to do business with.
I’ve not found the solution yet. My biggest issue is finding a venue I can finance initially, and the initial investment to start up – but I have been accepted onto a mentorship scheme to help me with these issues, and remain confident that I can, and will, set up a ground-breaking new play space in Cardiff, that will foster the kink community beautifully.
Onto prettier highlights of the year however!
I got to work with two amazing photographers this year – Jamie Mahon and Tigz Rice. It’s such a privilege to work with other photographers, especially ones as talented as these, some of my favourite shots are below, but there’s a full post about my time with Jamie, and there will be one all about working with Tigz coming up!
But being in front of the camera was not all I got up to in 2022. I did much more behind the camera getting to photograph others! Pup Rascal remains a regular model, and I also got to do my first event portrait night, plus a studio day with Mog the Confessor, Emily Wilde, and Rascal. There were also plenty of shoots with friends, and family, but this is not the platform for sharing those! Perhaps 2023 will be the year I gain the confidence to start charging?
My Kinky Highs of 2022
Getting to attend more play parties! The world is opening again and this year I had so many wonderful spontaneous kink moments with strangers – so revitalising! There were ridiculous costumes, beautiful bruises, many writhing bodies, and many many foot rubs. I attended my first FemDom Ball, had several kink weekends away with friends, and have genuinely lost track of the amount of Orgies I attended. Let’s hope nobody ever asks for my body count.
Mousey, Jenkins and E: Your sessions this year have been my favourite, and the ones that stick in my memory when I look back over the year. I can’t wait to build on them in 2023.
Lastly – two kink skills I have really built upon in 2022, and I am very proud of. My caning, and shibari. I can now hit so much harder, and with excellent accuracy, and crucially without tiring so easily. I have Miss Jessica Hyde‘s wonderful tutelage to thank for that. And my shibari – there’s still plenty of room for improvement and loads of shapes I have yet to even look at, let alone commit to memory, but I understand the rope so much better now, and improvising shapes are much easier. I even managed to tie in the dark on a few occasions, just by feel.
Of course, there were lows. Plenty of shit happened in 2022. My Grandma passed after an extremely drawn-out deathbed, my own health yoyoed, wall after wall of problems getting in the way of opening a plays pace. BUT. We overcome, we learn, we move on, and we look for different paths.
So, onto 2023. Let’s make it the best we can!
