Once upon a new website...

I've had such a lovely day today basking in the glow of all the lovely comments about my new website.  It's always good launching a new one but this one is made all the more special because of the story behind it.

Ffion my daughter is about to fly the nest and go to Uni to study Software Engineering. She is going to the same University to do almost the same course that my partner Robert did 20 years ago. They have bonded over the subject and for the last six months Robert has been teaching Ffion programming on Friday afternoons. He loves to teach. She loves to learn.

When I said I'd like a new website Robert had the idea of arranging a Summer placement for her at the company he was freelancing at.

Robert says to Ffion 'At its earliest I wanted to give you the opportunity to earn the money for the laptop you’d need for university in September. Once I had the idea though the reasons kept coming: maybe you’d gain some lucrative skills that will keep you afloat financially; I’d learn how to teach; I’d spend lots of time with someone I love; I might even find someone I’d want to work with in the future...'

So for 6 weeks they went off to work together every morning. So cute!

Sarah Mason came to do a photo shoot in the workshop and Ffion used the lovely images that she created as the jumping off point for her design. 

Ffion says 'It was fun working as a team with us three and Sarah who took the photographs. The design was focused around the high quality, beautiful images and wouldn’t have worked or probably even have been thought up without them.'

Once I had jumped up and down a lot in excitement at the initial designs she began to craft a beautiful website. 

Ffion says 'One of the best things about working with Mum was that she was able to give us quite specific requirements and guidelines and that she wasn’t afraid to say if she didn’t like something or go a bit crazy if she really did. This allowed us all to work closely and make sure the website suited her and reflected her initial ideas as best it could.'

Eight weeks later after a big learning curve and a lot of fun the website is born. I am sooooo happy with it and I'm even happier that we all got so much out of working together.

Robert says to Ffion 'I couldn’t have wished for more success. I don’t know about the more philosophical aspects of whether you got an accurate feel for the world of work. When it comes to the practical, everything went really well. I saw you gain in confidence and skill day by day. The finished article was more polished and complete than I’d have dared hope'.

You can read the whole sweet and insightful conversation between Robert and Ffion here on his blog.