Jane Sandford

Moonworld has been with me since 2003.

At the time, I’d just come out of a long-term relationship that left me, quite frankly, shattered. I was alone in a country I didn’t belong in, but stayed because of my son. I was chatting to a friend on Messenger and we decided to pop into an MSN chatroom (remember those?) ‘for a giggle’ – I made it in; he didn’t.

The nickname I chose was ‘Moonchild’, because I’m a Cancerian, and ‘Cancer’ wasn’t quite the image I was trying to get across. My previous partner used to say I was ‘fluffy’ in my beliefs and Moonchild fitted me quite well.

I stayed there for many years; I made some good friends, and our friendships weren’t just online. We met up for a couple of mass camping trips – and I even met my future husband in there!

My nickname was gradually shortened to just ‘Moon’ and, even now, some people from those days still call me that.

When MSN closed their rooms down, I helped set up a website for the group and we started up our own integrated chat and forum.

I got the website bug – and when I decided to make my own site, the logical name was Moonworld.

Evolution

Personal blog
Initially, Moonworld was just a personal blog, described by one friend as coming directly ‘from the heart’. It was my online therapist. I opened up to the world; my doubts and fears. I really was blogging from the heart. It wasn’t long before my blog posts began to offer solutions. Whilst writing, I began analysing, and by the end of each post, I’d reached a conclusion to whatever issue I was writing about at the time. After a while, I wasn’t feeling the need to blog at all – I came out of ‘therapy’, and came back to England for my own sanity.

Forum
I redesigned the site and added a forum; mostly about ‘conspiracy’ theories, or ‘truth-seeking’ as I preferred to call it. After a particularly heated debate with a gentleman in America, who insisted that everyone in Iran lived in mud huts (until I presented him with photos of Tehran) and he wanted to shoot everyone, I shut down the forum. I’d reached a positive stage in my life and I didn’t want any negativity getting in the way. I’d also gone back to work and didn’t have the time to maintain it.

Crystal therapy
In my spare time, I began to make crystal jewellery and for a while Moonworld was a showcase for that; then, after I’d completed an Aromatherapy course, it became a website for an aromatherapy business (on the side), until I had major surgery and a seizure and I needed to take it easy. I began writing and recording my music instead and Moonworld lay dormant for some time.

Saying goodbye
When I renewed the domain name a few years ago, I had no intentions of using it again, and offered it to a friend, who politely declined.

Jane’s Musing
Then I lost my voice, couldn’t sing, and started to write poetry; setting up this site to hold my poems – as Jane’s Musing. After NaPoWriMo 2013 was over, I didn’t write again for a while – again, busy with my music.

In 2013, my marriage (to the one I’d met in the MSN chatroom) ended, and I started seeing a very funny up poet/musician, who you might know as ‘G:)‘ and I started writing again.

Poetry
I brought the domain name here, whilst still retaining the Jane’s Musing title and, after a very brief name change to ‘The Furry Lollipop’ (on a whim, cat-inspired), I decided to bring Moonworld back to life! The poems can be found in the Blog section of the site.

And so, here we are!

Revolving and evolving since 2003

Update: Since writing this, this morning, somebody, completely randomly, told me about the Wayback Machine and I had a real blast from the past!