I’ve noticed some bloggers raising doubts as to whether they will continue making postings beyond the immediate future for reasons such as the issues they cover having been exhausted, or the feeling that they are unable to add usefully to the subjects they cover. I pondered their dilemma whilst we were engaged in the pleasurable festive activity featured in this posting.
There is no such dilemma on these pages. This blog remains true to its header, written when it was set up over five years ago:
“The main purpose of this blog is to keep in touch with friends and family, and maybe entertain others with common interests, particularly in relation to the outdoors. We hope you enjoy it, and your comments are valued....”
The blog actually followed on from over five years of reporting on our outdoors activities through our website that continues to this day (though a ‘programme’ for 2013 is somewhat overdue).
The on-line record, which starts with Sue’s account of our Tour of Mont Blanc trip in 2000 – thanks go to Alan Rayner for reminding us last night of that lovely trip – follows on from a diary that started in 1980 (thanks, Laurie) and has now reached Volume 74, albeit latterly through a lot of copying and pasting (literally) from these pages.
So this blog will continue in one form or another for as long as I’m around to make the postings. You could say that it’s in its 33rd year!
Family and friends can now call in to Picasa, etc, at will to view images of scenes in which they may have been present, and I do get satisfaction from the fact that digital images can be displayed for all to see. What a contrast to days past when the photos or slides received a cursory glance before being boxed or albumed and eventually relegated to the loft. I even have a set of negatives from my first venture across the Channel in the 1970’s which have never even been printed. I must dig them out and scan them sometime! If you are reading this, Jacqui, Roger or John – be warned!
I also gain pleasure from the comments and viewings by complete strangers who visit these pages to seek information that may be useful to them, whether it be a route, image or a gear review or sundry piece of information – this blog and our website receive over 200 such visits every day; we hope that some of those visits provide the answers or information that is being sought.
I could ramble on, but I’ll finish by thanking Richard, Jenny and Dot for their assistance with this seasonal indulgence, and Nell and Keith for providing it in the first place. It was fun…
… and it brought back happy childhood memories.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
5 comments:
Happy New Year Martin and Sue. Keep up the postcards. Brilliant and educational.
Thanks Alan. It goes without saying that the blog, and of course the TGO Challenge, have generated numerous good friends over the past 5-6 years.
Happy New Year Martin and Sue. Keep up the postcards coming Martin, they're all thoroughly enjoyable.
A belated Happy New year from me, too!
Interesting, some people's thoughts on blogs. I suppose I've generally only added something to mine when I think it worthwhile, rather than trying to detail every walk regardless of potential interest. Even so, I feel I've neglected mine slightly in the last month or two, for various reasons but at least in part because I felt a bit jaded with it.
Still, 2013 has brought a new rash of enthusiasm!
Thanks Gibson, and thanks Jules. I'm afraid you have to put up with entries for all my recorded walks, however routine. It's usually the only place I record them, subject to later copying and pasting to a notebook. Readers are free to (and I suspect most do) skim over the vast bulk that's of no interest to them.
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