I’m a blogger! I haven’t quite honed the design of my blog yet, got lots of playing with colours to do, but I’m here!

I’m Coco, wife of Remus Azoitei (Romanian concert violinist, violin professor at Royal Academy of Music, Renault 12 enthusiast and generally awesome husband and Daddy) – mummy of two small boys, Gabriel (3) and Lucian (1), violinist & teacher, entreprenuer, and acting student. I love my family more than the Earth, I love music, I’m passionate about bringing classical music to babies and normalising classical music in general. I love Italy, champagne, flowers, babies & children, all things lovely and I’ll be writing about all these things at some point no doubt… plus life, death and the universe.

There’s a sad but beautiful story behind my new blog. A month ago, the mum-blogger community on twitter (of which I was a part as a mumprenuer @classicalbabyco) was rocked by the sudden shock of baby loss. The beautiful 9 month old daughter of Jennie Henley (@Edspire) died suddenly in her cot one night from SIDS. We were all stunned by her loss and became more and more involved as she turned to twitter for company and support the night after Matilda Mae was found sleeping, pouring out her grief in searingly honest detail. A few of us stayed up long into the night that first 24 hours after, as she tweeted from a dark, quiet house with husband and twins sleeping. I remember holding myself awake until gone 2am, long after her twitter feed fell silent, unable to bear the thought of her tweeting something and finding herself alone. Over the following days and weeks something strange happened. A new #Matilda Mae community sprung-up on social media, rallying around a grieving mother in her darkest time, sending love, answering her cries with our own esoteric answers, responding to Jennie’s tweets and blog posts with comforting words, ideas for the funeral service, music, ways of remembering Tilda and over the month we all came to be in awe of this woman. Even in the darkest times she managed to make everything around her beautiful. The beauty of her memorials for her daughter, the things she wrote, her thoughts for others, her ideas for the twins to honour Matilda’s memory: everything sparkled around her. She really is the most beautiful person! And we all came to love her and think of her as a real friend.

I’ve spent so much time online this month, talking to her, writing to her and to other bloggers about her. I want to write more and need a place to do that. So here it is. So, I have Jennie to thank for this blog. She even came up with the name: Coco&Co! This blog will be my own place to make beautiful. (Just another small part of Matilda Mae Henley’s immense, ongoing legacy). I hope you like it…. xx