Annabelle Hayes started her career in the newsroom at ITN before moving to work in publishing, initially for Business Europe, a Barclay Brothers backed dot.com venture, before becoming editor of HRZone.co.uk and Workingmums.co.uk. She lived in the Tower of London as a student/Durham undergraduate, so is well versed to lockdowns, rules and restrictions. Annabelle lives in rural north Essex with her husband, three children, dog and five chickens. She loved writing from an early age, when it was noted at school that she had a talent for 'creative writing'. She teaches primary age school children part-time, combining this with freelance editorial work. At the start of the first lockdown she started her blog, The Paroking Diaries (parents working). From maths to masks, whining to walks and rainbows to rosé, her homeschooling blogs offered a humorous light on a serious time and an often hilarious perspective on lockdown life, from commuting ‘upstairs and right’ to the office to the relentless screen time during the year everyone had to ‘stay at home’, April 2020 to March 2021.
