New Year, New Start

Happy New Year all :-)

It has been some time since I posted. 2024 continued to be an incredibly challenging year. For someone who writes about the darker side of history, I certainly started to see the darker side of a few people and, to be honest, I considered whether it was worth it or whether the time for my 'para-tirement' had arrived. Yet, I count myself extremely fortunate as I also saw just how amazing others could be, and their support and enthusiasm quickly reversed any thoughts of stopping.

With the new year, it is time for a new start. I know almost everyone says that, but 2025 is an important year for me. It is when I will start moving away from mainstream employment and begin to focus more and more time on my paranormal work, research, and writing. With that change, I need to make sure all my platforms are up to date and ready to go.

Over the next few weeks, there will be some changes to this website. The mobile version, in particular, looks dreadful! I use a laptop rather than smaller mobile devices, and I hadn't realised how bad it looked until I needed to check something and my phone was closest to hand. So, my apologies to all users of mobile devices—I will do better.

While updating my LinkedIn profile over the last few days to reflect the changing direction for this year, I also realised that 2025 will mark the 20th anniversary of my return to serious paranormal research. How appropriate that a milestone year is the one when major changes happen.

And talking of changes, I feel I need to give some clarity on where things will be posted going forward. My articles about reputed hauntings, paranormal investigations, etc., will be posted on the Scottish Paranormal/Haunted Scotland website. If you don't already follow it, please consider a free membership to stay up to date with all that the team is doing, we have a lot of exciting projects happening this year.

Posts and updates regarding my writing, which will inevitably include some aspects of the paranormal given that it is one of the main subjects I write about, will be posted here on the Haunted Explorer. Paranormal posts here are more likely to be my own rambling thoughts on things rather than articles about specific hauntings. Folklore tales will also be posted here (more to come on that soon).

Details of my research into the historic witch trials will continue to be posted on the Scottish Witches website, where a similar blog post to this one is also appearing.

I have lots to talk about. My book Secret Perth has been released since my last post, and Celebrating St Andrews is with the publishers awaiting release. I have a fiction book I am working on and a whole new range of books to start writing along with my good friend, fellow paranormal researcher, and business partner, Ryan O'Neill. There are also some developments on the folklore side and other media work coming up. But I will save these for future posts, otherwise, I’ll have nothing else to talk about.

In the meantime, thank you all, and let’s get ready for 2025 :-)