Everything I write starts the same way: something I didn't know, that nobody told me, that turned out to matter rather a lot. Here's the one that started it.

For about a year, I thought I was losing it. Not sleeping. Forgetting words mid-sentence. Joint pain that was real. I put it down to stress, age, work, the usual suspects. It took a friend saying the word "menopause" out loud over coffee for the penny to drop. I was forty-nine. Nobody had told me what this actually was, or that it could start years before the bit everyone mentions.

That stayed with me. Not just the not-knowing, but how normal the not-knowing was. Everyone I spoke to had their own version of the same story: the symptom they didn't connect, the year they spent worrying, the appointment where they felt mad rather than heard. The information existed. It was just buried under jargon, or wellness language, or three hundred pages when you needed three.

So, fast forward a few years, and I wrote the guide I'd needed and couldn't find.

And then I realised it wasn't just menopause. There were other things - the stuff around life, home, adventure - that nobody briefs you on properly either, and that I could usefully write for someone just like me. Someone who wants the actual answer, plainly, without the padding. My people, as it turns out. So Apparently was born.

The guides are short on purpose, because your time is not infinite and most of what fills a longer book is filler. I'm not an expert and I don't pretend to be - I'm the one who has lived it, got curious, did the reading, and wrote down what I'd learned, or wished I'd known. The brand is called Apparently for exactly that reason. Turns out is the most useful phrase I know.