Brave New World

Hello my lovelies! Apologies for the radio silence this last week. As you can see we have made some changes around here. We have a swish new look and a sweet new name. Switching things over was not without it’s issues though. And I have some inside info on how to get around some of the drama.

I’ve been talking about this change for a while. I have always had issues telling people about my blog in person and – social anxiety aside – it was generally because the name isn’t very clear or obvious out loud. Winsome is a word not many people use these days and it felt like I needed a change. I also wanted a name that better reflected who I am that I could use to take this little adventure of mine beyond the blog from time to time. I toyed with changing it to my actual name but I just couldn’t get comfortable with it. So Wellington Bakehouse was born. There is a gorgeous origami tui logo that goes with it too. It’s not very visible on the site because of some of the issues I had switching things over but it will make an appearance soon. You may see him sitting on a wire on the corner of your browser tab though.. To me the tui is the quintessential bird of Wellington. At almost every house I’ve lived in there have been a lot of them around so I associate them super strongly with my city. They’re sleek and marbled with greens and blues and have a dashing tuft of white feathers under the chin. Like they’ve dressed up for a party. We’ve pared down our colour palette to a single dark blue which we will dress up from time to time with some gold. Clean and easy.

So I started the roll over to a new domain and look on Monday morning. I updated all my social media handles. And as I was tweaking and finalising some little things the back end fell over. In the changes I had made I had managed to sever the links between my user account and the new domain site. I couldn’t do anything. The WordPress support team have been amazing – fixed it all up. It took a bit of time and a specialist but we got there in the end! So I haven’t been able to update you on things and check in and let you know what’s happening. I’m sorry we couldn’t talk sooner. These things alway get caught up somewhere or other. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been super stressed about it. A lot of learning has been going on this month. Technical and personal.

Another issue that may be causing you some problems is accessing your old links in certain web browsers. Chrome in particular takes security pretty seriously. Because my old site thewinsomebaker.com is forwarding traffic to a different domain now it looks really suspicious and Chrome is blocking traffic if you use an old link. There are technical reasons for why this is happening but I won’t get in the weeds about it. I am in the process of updating my Pinterest pin links to the new domain and will work through the Facebook ones as well over time. If you have a bookmark or links saved to recipes then updating them will help you access all the tasty goodness! Just come to the main domain and search for your favourite recipes to get new links. I’m as frustrated as you about this one – I didn’t realise it would be an issue until it was and the security message it throws up is not a good look! Thanks for being patient. You’re the best.

I also mentioned that I am going the start sending a monthly newsletter to replace the regular “Life” posts so that I can chat with you more in depth about things that have been happening in the month and make that more meaningful that a hurried summary of what I did in the previous week. If you already subscribe to receive email notifications I have popped you on the list to receive the newsletter. If you don’t then just pop to the sign-up form on the right under “Newsletter” to get in with a grin!

Thanks for all your support over the years and for sticking by me through this switcheroo – onwards and upwards right?

Don’t be afraid of change. Roll with the punches. Look after each other.

xo