A Summer Refresh

and some notes on the importance of community, connection and creativity

A couple of years ago I had the idea to offer regular online gatherings for the Chez Hanny community. What started as an experiment became a monthly occurrence in the form of Create Ensemble - an hour on a Monday evening to come together for the purpose of doing something to nourish our creativity - be it writing, sewing, drawing, reading… or something else.

These sessions have been so enjoyable and I love chatting to you and learning about your creative projects.

And then, after a year or so of those sessions, I added in a monthly early morning writing session - initially starting at 6:30am and later shifting by half an hour to start at the slightly more appealing hour of 7:00am.

Most times there is a lovely group of you appearing on my screen, but very occasionally it’s just been me - yet that doesn’t deter me at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. I run these sessions because I enjoy them and I get an hour to do something creative. This note was very popular!

Today I’m switching things up a little and making the online gatherings simpler and a bit more frequent.

Everything is now part of Create Ensemble (all creative disciplines welcome at all sessions) and I’m offering 2-3 sessions each month at a variety of times.

It means the details are all in one place, via the Create Ensemble tab on the Chez Hanny page.

So when are Create Ensemble sessions taking place?

There are 5 sessions taking place between now and early September - dates and times below. I’ll publish more every month and let you know when new dates are available:

• Monday 13th July 2026, 19:00-20:00

• Friday 24th July 2026, 07:00-08:00

• Wednesday 12th August 15:00-16:00

• Monday 24th August 19:00-20:00

• Friday 4th September 07:00-08:00

To join Create Ensemble sessions, you’ll need a paid subscription which is just £3.50 per month or £30 for a year.

This fee helps to cover the cost of my Zoom subscription and the admin time to keep these sessions running. Plus you have access to all of my writing (I’ve published over 250 pieces on Substack over the past 3 years!).

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As well as making a few changes to Create Ensemble, I’ve made a few other tweaks to my pages, updating the Welcome page and playing around with some of the visual elements.

Last week, I spotted Louise Gregson-Williams’ note where she was offering to send handwritten postcards from her travels in France. I loved the idea and have borrowed it (hope you don’t mind, Louise).

I LOVE receiving something handwritten in the post. In fact, reading Virginia Evan’s brilliant book The Correspondent has made me want to write more letters to people. I might make it my summer mission to acquire some beautiful writing stationery and start writing proper letters again.

Anyway, I digress. I’d love to handwrite postcards to anyone who would like one, and I will provide my address on the postcard in case you’d like to become penpals (I loved having penpals as a kid, why can’t we do it as adults?). I’ve set up a form which you can fill in here if you’d like a postcard: https://forms.gle/z4tv1MjVmBkwC9bZ9

By far my favourite thing about Substack is the community, and the opportunities to connect and meet with wonderful, inspiring and interesting people (that’s all of you!). I’m currently making plans for an in-person event for the Autumn which will focus on taking inspiration from nature for our homes and gardens. Paid subscribers will be the first to hear about it.

I hope you’ll join us at one of the upcoming Create Ensemble sessions, or perhaps we’ll become penpals.

If you’re already a paid subscriber and you would like to sign up for any of the upcoming Create Ensemble session, please click here and scroll to the bottom for all of the registration links.

I’ll be keeping my eye on the comments this evening (which are open to all), so come and say hi and have a chat!