Rhi Axtell – Writer

We are five days into 2026 and I’ve finally managed to stumble my way back onto this blog. Hello everyone, happy new year!

This year was my first solo-Christmas as I was flu-ridden and not very pleasant to be around*.

*I know this because I am continually forced to be around myself.

It’s been a festive period of ups and downs. At one of the downest of downs, I swore I would give up writing entirely (blogging doesn’t count, right?).

But, to balance that out with an up, I did receive a card from my niece where she wrote that she loved me and drew my new favourite piece of art of the two of us:

My niece is 26. (I jest. She is 5).

But now we are in 2026 and I am healed from the flu! Only ups from now on! (If I don’t read the news and ignore everything going on in the world around me)

I’m trying not to do the New Year’s Resolution thing. It is surprisingly difficult but every time I find myself beginning to think something along the lines of I should do…I try to distract myself with cake, or something artistic, or by looking after the new asparagus fern I bought myself a few days ago.

(To quote the woman in the plant shop: “It is neither an asparagus, nor a fern.”)

One thing I would like to do this year (not in a ‘resolution to improve myself’ way, but in an ‘acknowledging my true self’ way) is to finally put into words on this blog that:

I am non-binary, use They/Them pronouns, and go by the name Rhi.

If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you might have noticed the subtle changes I have made to the blog title and all that jazz. I just needed to put the words there, to get it out, and stop hiding it.

I’m not ashamed of being myself.

There is a lot of negativity in the world at the moment against trans and non-binary people. I am pushing back against that by claiming my space and my truth.

Admittedly, it’s a tiny push back at the bottom of a blog post on a blog that isn’t really frequented by many, but hey! It’s a start.

Hello everyone 🙂

Happy New Year.