At the start of this year, I ran a workshop for the team at Taunton Brewhouse. Christmas had just finished — that particular kind of exhaustion that comes after weeks of being switched on for everyone else — and they wanted something quiet and restorative. A chance to come back together before the new year properly began. We made botanical paper lanterns. Delicate tissue paper, dried flowers and leaves, each one pressed and layered by hand. It's the kind of making that asks just enough of you...

There’s a moment, sometime around 10.45am on a Thursday morning, when I’m sitting around a table at the Brewhouse with Jess and a room full of new mums at Brew & Do, that I think: this is one of the best hours of the week. Not because it’s polished or perfect, but because it isn’t. There are babies being fed, nappy bags, mashed up strawberries, someone’s little one has just discovered they can make a very loud sound with their mouth and is absolutely delighted about it. In the middle of all...

I didn’t start Late Create because I had a grand business plan. I started it because I had a nine-month-old baby, a toddler, and a very strong feeling that I needed something that was just for me. After my second baby was born, I found myself searching for something social I could do locally in Taunton that didn’t revolve around prosecco (I was breastfeeding) or signing up for a proper course. I was tired; I didn’t want a big night out or to have to think too much. I also didn’t want to be...