<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[My Site]]></title><description><![CDATA[My Site]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 24 Oct 2026 16:18:28 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[International Women’s Day: the freedom not to be perfect]]></title><description><![CDATA[Today is International Women’s Day, and I’m writing this from the dining table while listening to Radio 3 Unwind. I’m sitting down with my laptop and a going-cold cup of tea, after Virginia Woolf’s famous essay A Room of One’s Own popped into my head. In it, she reflects that for a woman to write fiction, she needed two things: money and a room of her own (ideally with a door that closes). What she really meant, perhaps, was time to think and the freedom to exist inside her own mind.]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/post/international-women-s-day-the-freedom-not-to-be-perfect</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69adc46b053d59350a11bdd9</guid><pubDate>Sun, 08 Mar 2026 18:51:25 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_5041347a4f7a6c4c546149~mv2_d_3072_4608_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Chelsea Branch</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[What car troubles taught me about perfectionism ]]></title><description><![CDATA[Often, when we’re chasing perfection, it can feel like everything goes wrong at once. One thing breaks, then another. A friend seems a bit distant and then an unexpected phone bill arrives. Before long, we start telling ourselves that everything has gone to shit and it’s all our fault.]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/post/what-car-troubles-taught-me-about-perfectionism</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69961826f7c9a5cfe20371aa</guid><pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:52:24 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_3948754465786542554b45~mv2_d_5616_3744_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Chelsea Branch</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Seven ways to swipe right]]></title><description><![CDATA[I wrote this in *2019, during a season when dating apps were very much part of my life. I was swiping, matching, unmatching, overthinking bios, overanalysing silences, trying to make sense of a dating culture that was both convenient and exhausting.]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/post/seven-ways-to-swipe-right</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69889c8043ec5706c4342fda</guid><pubDate>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_4b674c7446436766433238~mv2_d_6024_4024_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Chelsea Branch</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A (little) letter of light: 3rd February 2026]]></title><description><![CDATA[All day I’ve been telling myself I must write a letter of light. I must write a letter of light. That it has to happen, because it’s Tuesday, because that’s the plan, because that’s what I said I’d do.]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/post/a-little-letter-of-light-3rd-february-2026</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6982564caa13a366d93da467</guid><category><![CDATA[Letters of Light]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 03 Feb 2026 20:14:56 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_1f874342ff634e8abd5d0e6b1fb97e2c~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Chelsea Branch</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[₊⊹ Tuesday Letter of Light ₊⊹ Make it Rain ]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dear Imperfectly Perfect Human, Woah. If you’re in the UK right now…how much rain? I don’t remember it ever raining quite this much. I’ve been waking up intermittently to the sound of my windows weeping and the night-time-nerve-inducing howling of the wind. It’s giving s oggy socks and serious melancholy. It feels relentless. I don’t remember there ever being quite so much of it before. And rain is such a perfect example of our resistance to the way things are. Us Brits talk about the weather...]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/post/make-it-rain</link><guid isPermaLink="false">697918fffbb97394b2872d69</guid><pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 20:02:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_42dfcc9f98da4c75b14923c305168694~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Chelsea Branch</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Botox blues: how Botox changed the way I look at myself ]]></title><description><![CDATA[“You look too young for Botox,” the practice owner said as I got up from the waiting room chair.]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/post/the-botox-blues-how-botox-changed-the-way-i-look-at-myself</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6974c861e389f5384b710850</guid><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 13:37:55 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5eda74_ce3b893cc41e4ddb8d67f33e747d1a95~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Chelsea Branch</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Letter of Light for January]]></title><description><![CDATA[January has a bit of a bad rep, doesn’t it?



Yesterday was “Blue Monday”, supposedly the most depressing day of the year. A phrase that sounds official enough to believe, but let this letter enlighten you that this is not a fact backed by science or psychology at all, but a marketing campaign from 2005 designed to sell holidays during the post-Christmas slump.]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/post/letter-of-light-for-january</link><guid isPermaLink="false">696f2a7b423c15f2e1f0c271</guid><pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 07:13:54 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_a7cb97050a13436e8a4ad09233cdf7bd~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Chelsea Branch</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Imperfect Intro]]></title><description><![CDATA[We’ve never had more tools for wellbeing, yet so many of us still feel like we’re failing at it. That question has followed me around for years. A bit like the voice from the chap from the headspace app.]]></description><link>https://www.chelseabranchpoetryandwords.co.uk/post/an-imperfect-intro</link><guid isPermaLink="false">696d2eb2482610fa28978cc7</guid><pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 19:05:52 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5eda74_6bdca36e73f145a193d12b207b703e31~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_500,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Chelsea Branch</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>