It was a cold, grey February day and DH was away visiting his mother for a few days. With no car to take me further afield, I was spending my time catching up with the spring-cleaning, in my experience a job best done when you have the house to yourself. In between bouts of cleaning, I was reading blogs, an absorbing pastime I’d discovered some time before and which fascinated me more and more.
That day, however was different. Almost on the spur of the moment, I decided to stop fantasising about starting a blog myself and just do it. It took surprisingly little time to register with Blogger, find a name and set up a very basic template and that evening I wrote my very first post and set it adrift on the world-wide web.
That first post must have looked very austere – no images, no links, no videos, just text. It only took me a few days to master posting images and a few weeks to work out how to post a link. Videos however had to wait for several months and of course there was always the spice of danger involved in learning to live with Blogger’s vagaries. J
I always knew I would enjoy writing posts and to my surprise I even enjoyed the technical challenges. What I could never have foreseen was the enormous, life-changing enjoyment and satisfaction I would gain from interaction with other bloggers and their blogs. Moving from passive reading to active blogging, commenting and replying was one of the best decisions I've ever made and three years on, blogging is still one of the great joys of my life.
So thank you all for reading and commenting and generally encouraging me, for giving me so many insights and so much pleasure though your own blogs, and for being as nice a bunch of people as one could ever hope to meet and count as friends.
As a small token
of gratitude, here is one of my favourite songs by those masters of words and
music, Flanders and Swann. Enjoy….
P.S. DH is off to visit his mother tomorrow, so I'll be catching up with you all very soon.
Image via Google
Image via Google
Dear Perpetua - it has been such a pleasure to get to know you too - you feel much more than a virtual friend - congratulations on three years of blogging.
ReplyDeleteThere has never been another pair who can compare with Flanders and Swann (sounds like the start of a song).
Hope you are making good progress - no heavy domestic duties whilst DH is away.
By the way, I am sure you know that Stephanie Flanders, the ex financial expert on the BBC, is Michael's daughter.
Thanks, Rosemary. I'm feeling much better and I promise not to do any heavy lifting in DH's absence.:-) You're quite right that our blogging friends are very much more than virtual. We keep in touch with each other a lot more than many people do with their face to face friends.
DeleteI'm not surprised to find you're a Flanders and Swann fan too. Their songs are unforgettable and deserve to be heard much more than they now are. Thanks for the information about Stephanie Flanders. She must have been very young when her father died.
Oh, Perpetua, that was such fun, I am laughing out loud in delight. What a joy is the blog world, and the connections we make and memories we can stir in ourselves and others. One of our sons learned French Horn right through high school, and I was his accompanist as he raced through his horn examinations. He played in school orchestras and marching band. I went to all his lessons with him and soon developed a little business as accompanist for the other students' exams. And loved it! Congratulations on your third bloggiversary, and long may you continue your wonderful blog. Keep well and don't do too much spring cleaning. :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it, Patricia, and that it brought back so many happy memories of accompanying your son.. I love the thought of you as a one-woman accompanist business. :-)
DeleteYes, the blog world is a joy and we learn and gain so much from each other's thoughts and memories. A world-wide network of friends is a wonderful thing. Let me assure you I've no intention of wielding anything heavier than a duster in DH's absence. :-)
I'm so glad you decided to take up blogging, can it really be three years?, and more than ever so because you include such little treats as this latest.
ReplyDeleteWonderful Flanders and Swann, sadly gone (or should that be gorn)?
It is indeed three years, Ray. I started 7 months after you and I too am very glad to have met you through blogging. Glad you enjoyed my little thank-you treat. Flanders and Swann are pure delight.
DeleteCongratulations on three happy years of blogging, and here's to many more! It's a wonderful world.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sarah. It certainly is and we have no way of knowing that until we take the first step. I only wish I'd taken the plunge sooner. :-)
DeleteCongratulations on your third anniversary - wishing you many more years of happy blogging.
ReplyDeleteThanks, BtoB. I've no intention of stopping any time soon. What would I do without my fix from Turkey and so many other places?
DeleteCongratulation on your third anniversary Perpetua. It's been lovely getting to know you along the way and hope to enjoy a lasting friendship for a long time to come :)
ReplyDeletePatricia x
Thanks, Patricia. This getting to know one another is a wonderful thing and I can't imagine life without blogging now and my friends all over the world.
DeleteIts been a joy to follow you Perpetua. Congratulations on your 3rd year.
ReplyDeleteYou always write such interesting posts.
Its a pleasure to have you as one of my lovely blogging friends.
Over this last year.. you have helped me so much.
I started out pretty much the same. I remember my daughter saying to me." mum"- its very difficult to blog. But, here i am .. I so enjoy it.
looking forward to reading more of your posts, along this year.
wishing you a good week.
love val x x x
Thanks, Val. I'm very glad I got to know you and it's been a pleasure to use my hard-won knowledge of Blogger when you needed a hand. Fingers crossed everything will be plain sailing from now on.
DeleteI'm glad you weren't put off by your daughter saying blogging is hard. Yes, we can encounter problems at times but most of us mange to blog very happily without being technical wizards. :-)
Congratulations on three wonderful years of blogging and, I hope, many more to come.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you took the plunge!
Without the advice so kindly given by you and Ayak the technical bits would have provided me with an excuse to take to drink...unlike you, I don't like the challenges thrown up by systems, so please accept my thanks.
You are so right about the unexpected aspect of blogging. It opens minds - and hearts.
Thanks, Helen. You and Ayak have to bear a good deal of the responsibility for me taking the plunge as your blogs were the first to intrigue and fascinate me. As for the technical stuff, I surprised myself by being willing to wrestle with it until I basically understood it and having done that it would be ungracious not to share what I'd learned with others. We're all in this together. :-)
DeleteThe opening of minds and hearts is pure gift and a wonderful discovery.
Happy Blogiversary, Perpetua! You have such a wonderful blog, and I'm so glad to have met you through it. It's always a treat when I see you have put up a new post!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kristie. This serendipitous meeting of minds and interests through blogging is just lovely and I hugely enjoy learning more about my blog friends through their blogs. long may it continue. :-)
DeleteFunny thing is, Perpetua, that as I read your beginning paragraphs I thought for a moment you were writing about me! This was precisely how I came to blog, myself. Now, having said all that, let me state how very blessed I feel to have become virtual partners with you in these writing endeavors. Isn't it amazing how much smaller this wide world becomes with friends from every corner?
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on three wonderful years - and a great big thank you for being a part of my life, Perpetua.
Thanks, Penny. Your opening made me smile. I think quite a few of us stumbled into blogging almost on a whim, with no idea of what we were getting ourselves into. I too am so glad that our paths crossed and like you I revel in this new network of friends that crosses oceans with ease. Even watching news bulletins takes on a new significance when we know people in the areas mentioned.
DeleteIt's a fascinating journey and I'm so glad to have your company.
I would dispute your borrowed statement at the head of this post. I have been a keen Facebooker since 2007, and there is far more to it than being a mere equivalent of a phone call. In fact, in my experience, blogging is a more disappointing mode of communication. For me, a blog is often too much like a letter lost in the post. Unless one spends a big chunk of every day reading other blogs and commenting thereon, the reciprocity never builds.
ReplyDeleteI only have a handful of FB friends I have never met. Two of them are distant relatives of ours I met through Ancestry.Com. Everyone else is a real chum at a distance. I have real time conversations with people who now live in Hawaii, and Singapore, or NZ and France, on the same topic, in quick exchanges where we all respond quickly to what the others have said.
Facebook is the home of the quick quip, the hi there and the "me too!". For me it is often my virtually cocktail party and I love it when it is firing on all cylinders like that.
You have never done Facebook, Perpetua, so don't knock what you haven't tried, I'd say...
A fair point, Marion, and of course you're entitled to disagree with me, and with the quotation I chose, as much as you like. :-) Since neither of my children is on FB, I've never felt more than the mildest temptation to register, so I can't see myself ever finding out what it's like from personal experience. Each to her own, say I, and I'm a blogger though and through, valuing the thoughtfulness of so many blog posts and the way they stretch my mind and my imagination. I'm in touch with a good number of my blog friends off the blog too - in fact my email address book is getting quite full - and I've even met a handful in person.. :-)
DeleteOK it was a flip choice of image, but for me it's still the truth. Interestingly the comment below yours adds another point of view.
You make think this is bizarre, but I have become more disenchanted with blogging the longer I've been involved, which is well over a year longer than you. I am not prepared to put in that sort of time, reading so many blogs and following and commenting at length, for a start all the husband would see of me would be the crown of my head over the rim of my laptop!
DeleteI also often detect a sort of "echo chamber" mentality on a lot of blogs I see, where every comment is yet another voice in a chorus of agreement. I've never found real-life conversations to be that endlessly harmonious! I find blogging a bit stilted and far too wordy and formal - it doesn't suit my flippant wisecracking insouciance. Perhaps I'm closer to being a tweeter than I realise;140 characters, now THERE'S a challenge of pithiness and getting straight to the point!
Not bizarre at all. Bloggers come and go for all sorts of reasons. For some circumstances change, for others inspiration flags or they find, like you, that blogging isn't really for them after all. It would be such a dull world if we were all alike. :-)
DeleteInterestingly the things you mention you don't like about blogging are some of the things that appeal to me. I like the fact that the posts on the blogs I read are thought-through and well-written and often challenge me to think and learn. I've been on enough internet forums with hasty, badly-written and thoughtless posts not to want to see those qualities in blogs. As for tweeting, again it just doesn't appeal, though I can easily see you writing some really cracking tweets.:-)
P.S. Given the choice between watching a film and reading blogs, I'd choose the blogs almost every time.
DeleteAgain, bizarrely, I have been on Facebook longer than The Daughter, who is only in her mid thirties even now. She was still using the now almost wholly abandoned MySpace until she heard I'd tried the new-fangled FB after being invited to join by an old friend who was, like me, born in the 1950s. She joined me on it, not the other way about.
DeleteFB has been successfully colonised by the middle-aged and older and there is an ever-growing larger older proportional presence on it as the teenagers slouch off to do something adolescent behind the bike sheds, out of sight of the grown-ups, on other types of social media.
I have noted a stout refusal to join FB voiced by all my older sisters, all bar the very eldest, our half-sister, who had an account for a while but used it hardly all, but then her adult children tell me she doesn't favour e-mail much either, preferring the telephone above all else.
At the other end of the scale and the age-group of we sisters, what I don't use any longer hardly at all is the telephone, I hardly ever switch my mobile on, and letters are by-the-by for me now that the Royal Mail has been privatised. I am not going to spend THAT much on a stamp to help - however little - shore up what is now a purely commercial venture.
Each to his own. It is the quality of the utterance and the responses (be they a yay or a nay) to it that matters, not the mode of its delivery, or length, I would aver.
I gather the younger generation is deserting FB en masse for WhatsApp. It's so uncool to have your parents wanting you to friend them. :-) I use the phone for a chat with the offspring from time to time, but that's the landline. My mobile is for emergencies only and is never switched on unless I need it. Emails have replaced letters and most phone calls for me.
DeleteAs we both agree, each to her own. :-)
FB has just put in a huge multi-billion dollar bid to buy WhatsApp. The kids may be cool, but their parents still have more money!
DeleteWe are in total accord re mobiles. Mine has £10 credit on it for emergencies - MY emergencies - should the car break down or I am delayed en route to somewhere I am expected. I keep it switched off so the battery doesn't run out in the meantime. The idea of being permanently connected to the entire world, as smart phone owners are via mobile interweb, frightens me witless and I need to have a nice lie down in a darkened room just for thinking about it.
Happy blogging anniversary! I very much enjoy your blog. I agree with the sentiments in the graphic you shared. I have a Facebook account and used it avidly for years, but I began losing interest about 18 months ago. I love blogging, and connecting through blogs, so much more. This is what I should have been doing all along.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jennifer. In the light of my sister's comment just above yours, I'm interested to see that for you blogging has become much more satisfying and rewarding than Facebook. It think it's great that there are these different ways for us to communicate, but for me blogging is so much the best.
DeleteI have to say I agree. I find blogs so much more rewarding than Facebook in terms of the connection we have with others.
DeleteI use Facebook a lot even though I don't really like it. It is extremely useful for connecting to other animal rescue groups here though, and that's my main reason for using it. Also to see photos of my grandsons posted by my daughter, minutes after they are taken.
From what I gather Facebook is very good for keeping in touch in the ways you describe, Ayak. However I think blogs do something different, enabling us to record our lives and thoughts in a more reflective way and letting us get to know others through the way they too reflect on their lives in their blogs. It's horses for courses, really. :-)
DeleteThat's YOUR blogging community, though, Perpetua. Yours is a reflective circle. I''ve seen acerbic blogs, political blogs, fashion blogs, recipe-swopping blogs, sports-supporters blogs, etc etc that don't pause for hardly a moment's reflection. if at all. Fashion blogs often don't get past "what I've bought" and "when and where i wore it", and by the way here are half a dozen photos of ME! The stench of narcissism is overpowering. I'd be careful before assuming the tone and values you and your followers and supporters have set for your discourse pertain throughout the blogosphere! A lot of it is pure unmitigated self-absorption, boasting and /or sounding off and grumbling. Without even being FUNNY, which to me is unpardonable.
DeleteI'm sure you're right, Marion, but since I never see any of the kind of blogs you mention and wouldn't know where to find them, I will stay quietly in my little corner of the blogging world in blissful ignorance. :-) Like any other kind of social intercourse blogs attract the like-minded, reflective to reflective and narcissistic to narcissistic. The thought of a fashion blog makes me blench!
DeleteYou can find other types of blogs by clicking the words NEXT BLOG at the very top of the ones you already read, in idle moments. Maybe you don't have idle moments...
DeleteI have a blog or two I follow and I am really not sure why I read them most days when they post, except as a form of aversion therapy v excessive fashionista-ism and horse-bonkers-ism. I like buying new clothes when I am feeling a bit flush, or swooping on bargains in charity shops, and I love horses, and even try to ride them in the warmer weather when my hips and knees hurt less, but some days these writers take it to a whole new level of obsession. A warning against being monothematic on any topic I guess. My favourite blogger bar none is Pearl in Minnesota, who is a comic writer par excellence, and I found her via you. Thank you for the introduction. She's a star in the making.
Pearl is a star already to me. :-) I think I tried Next Blog once in the early days, but was so put-off by what I found I didn't go further. I find the blogs i follow via other blogs or commenters on my blog and it works just fine.
DeleteNot only is the phenomenon of blogging a good way to express yourself for your own edification and a way to reach out to perhaps find likemindedness or at least stimulating interaction (in writing one), it is also a way to get to know other people, places, and lives at least at some basic level, and thereby broaden your mind slightly in an easy and enjoyable way (in reading others).
ReplyDeleteI always look forward to your posts. Thank you, and more please.
I will do my best. :-) I so agree that blogging satisfies a desire both for self-expression and for interaction with others. I've tried to use mine to record some memories of my childhood and other events in my life (in lieu of a journal) and also to share some aspects of my current life and the places I know and love. In return my mind is stretched by learning about different places and ways of life and the interests, experiences and opinions of others. It's a reciprocity I find deeply satisfying.
DeleteWe've both been writing about what blogging means to us this week haven't we? I think we are both in agreement when it comes to the pleasure we have from the friends we have made along the way. I can't believe it's 3 years for you. Here's to many more years of blogging....happy 3rd anniversary xxx
ReplyDeleteYes, we're both celebrating blogging anniversaries, though you're a couple of years ahead of me, and as i said to Helen, yours is one of the blogs that inspired me to get into this wonderful activity called blogging. Yes, it's three years and I've enjoyed every single post and comment, but what I value most is the personal relationships which have grown over those three years.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteBlogging for me. Glad I met you early in my own adventure and thank you in return for your support... Glad to hear you are on the mend and here's to many more years!! YAM xx
For me too, Yam. I'm also glad we stumbled across each other on our online journeys. I've a bit of catching up to do once I have the house to myself, as i think I've missed a significant transition of yours. :-)
DeleteI love reading about how other people started blogging. In 2009, I picked up some sort of flu virus. It started with just run of the mill symptoms and went on and on - it lasted 5 months. In that time, I could hardly go out of the house. I had an old Windows 98 computer and signed up for a Google account in 2008 - 1p a minute pay as you go at weekends. When I became housebound I joined BT Broadband and found a local blog by typing 'Long Mountain' into the Google search engine. It was wonderful - then I clicked on the comments and discovered other blogs. I was hooked and like you had to have a go myself. And then we became a community - and still going strong. I'm still very much on a learning curve, but it is one of the great things to come out of the www. I don't much like facebook or twitter, but everyone to their own. I love reading your blogs.
ReplyDeleteBecause I didn't find your blog until a year after I started my own, I'd never heard the story of how you started, Molly. I can so easily understand how the fun of reading blogs when you were almost house-bound led to the challenge of starting your own and I'm so glad you did. And we really are a community, with all our various talents and quirks making life interesting for each other. :-) Twitter, Facebook and blogs are all ways of communicating with people and like you I'm a blogger at heart.
DeleteIt's always a pleasure to visit you here so thank you to you for taking the plunge.
ReplyDeleteKnitsofacto is 3 on Saturday ... it was obviously a good month for staring a blog :)
Thanks, Annie. I too am glad I jumped in with both feet. Gosh, I didn't realise we both had the same idea at the same time. I bless the serendipity that led me to your blog. :-)
DeleteLikewise :) (I think we discovered each other via the sorely missed Hattats.)
DeleteI'm fascinated by the debate above. Of course it's true that ours is a very genteel and polite corner of Blogtopia, but I don't see choosing to stay within it as any different to choosing to lunch in the local pub rather than McDonalds. Each to their own and all that!
Having scrolled down further ... they're back!
DeleteThey are indeed, Annie, though it was in fact via Annie in Spain that I found you. You commented, I clicked on your username and there you were. As for the debate above, my baby sister and I have some VERY interesting discussions at times. :D
DeleteCongratulations on your third blog anniversary Perpetua! Whilst Facebook has it uses, I do find blogging a far better way of communicating and have enjoyed yours, almost from its beginning. Thank you too, for being such a faithful and regular commenter on mine.
ReplyDeleteAs I'm sure I've said before, I'm also a fellow fan of Flanders & Swann and very much enjoyed your video at the end of this post.
Thanks, Ricky. I'm sure Facebook is great for quick messages and sharing of photos and also linking people for a purpose, but like you I prefer the more thoughtful and reflective communication method we call blogging. Yours is another of the blogs which gave me the idea of starting my own. :-)
DeleteI remembered that you're another Flanders and Swann fan, so knew this video would be appreciated. :-)
Happy third blogging anniversary, Perpetua! It's such a pleasure to read your posts and also your wise comments. I've loved getting to know you -- at least a little -- over these years!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kathy and the pleasure has been entirely mutual. :-) I love the way we gradually get to know people through blogging and the meeting of minds which occurs across the world. It's wonderful.
DeleteHappy Blog Anniversary! I'm happy to have found you in the Universe of Blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Pondside. Your sentiment is heartily reciprocated. The links forged by blogging are very real.
DeleteCongratulations - I always enjoy your posts. Love Flanders & Swann - haven't heard them for years - thank you.
ReplyDeleteMy main blogging problem at present is that I seem to be doing so much I am too tired at the end of the day to write a post. Should get quieter soon.
Thanks, Susan. I think I found your blog via Molly and am glad I did so. As for not having time to blog, I really wouldn't worry. Life is for living and when things quieten down in the winter you'll find more time. I'm glad you enjoyed Flanders and Swann. There are plenty more of their songs on YouTube when you have a moment. :-)
DeleteCongratulations on this milestone. I am so glad that I found your blog. It has been wonderful getting to know you.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bonnie. When I started I couldn't have imagined I'd still be blogging 3 years on,. but I'm so glad I am. The friendships we make are very real and as you say, getting to know people like this is wonderful.
DeleteHello Perpetua,
ReplyDeleteIt cannot be three years! Time has flown by and how wonderful that our paths have crossed in this delightful way. It is always amazing how the Blogosphere encourages the most lovely friendships across countries and even continents. We certainly share your view that our lives are richer for it all.
May you continue to delight us all with your thoughts, travels and ideas to the next anniversary and beyond. We have missed you in our absence.
Thank you for your kind comment. We are glad to be back.
Welcome back, Jane and Lance. It was lovely to see your blog poop up in my reader after so long. You have been missed. :-)
DeleteYes, it is indeed 3 years. In fact I started my blog only a few weeks before you and our paths crossed very soon after that, for which I'm still grateful. I love the way blogging can give us such fascinating glimpses of other lives, countries and cultures to our mutual enrichment and understanding. Such a satisfying experience.
How lovely to see those two names again - forever linked with you, Perpetua, and my own early ventures into blogging! Hope we'll be seeing some HATTAT posts again before long. Axxx
DeleteYes, it's great to see them back, Annie. There's a catch-up post in my blog-list in the sidebar and more posts are promised. :-)
DeleteOf all the classic F&S tunes, that is my favourite and one I find myself singing at odd moments! Thank you for sharing it with us again.
ReplyDeleteHow time has flown in the past three years. Congratulations on your anniversary: I'm so very glad that you joined us in the blogosphere, and I look forward to many more posts.
I was going to contact you in any case just to let you know that 'In the House of Brede' has been reprinted by Virago Classics, and is the book of the month over at Cornflower Books' blog. I began reading it a day or two ago and knew from a few pages in that it was going to be one of those books which becomes as important as a dear friend. It's not often that one gets that tingling feeling of deep recognition from a book. Thank you so much for leading me to it.
It's such a clever song, which is why I like it so much. I now have it running irresistibly through my mind. :-)
DeleteYes, those three years have just flown and have been such fun. It was back in my early weeks of blogging that I did a post about 'In This House Of Brede' and its significance for me, so it's really good to know the book is now back in print. I'm totally unsurprised that you are having such a profound reaction to it. This happened to me too and to DD. For both of us it has become our' Desert Island' book, one we can read and reread without ever tiring of it . It never fails to move and challenge me and one can say that of very few books.
I'm so glad you put that toe into the water of the world of blogging. Actually, I think you just jumped right in. I love your blog. I've so enjoyed getting to know you. Congratulations on reaching this milestone.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I had no idea what blogging would add to my life. I learned so much in my early days of blogging. I'm afraid I've grown a bit lazy when it comes to sprucing up my blog. I haven't changed a thing on it in several years. Here's to blogging. I think the conversation just keeps getting better and better.
Actually, I think you're right, Sally. :-) I wrote half a dozen longish posts in the first week or so, as though someone had turned on a tap. The flow is a little slower nowadays, but the pleasure is just as great.
DeleteYour blogging journey dates back some time before mine, but I've so enjoyed joining you along the way. I too don't tweak the appearance of my blog. I gave it a fresh and simpler look a couple of years ago and have happily stayed with that ever since. To me it's what is written that really matters, not what surrounds it, though I always prefer simplicity of layout to something fussy. Long may all our blogs flourish!
Three years of blogging only? Feels like I've always known you, Perpetua - and just looking at the comments here, you have certainly created a blog that enjoys full-blown conversation. It's always a pleasure to pop by and see what you're up to or what has caught your attention recently.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a delight to have met you - virtually - and it has worked for me as well as if we'd met in person! Keep on doing whatever you do - it's great!
Axxx
Doesn't time fly when we're enjoying ourselves, Annie? Yes, people seem to talk among themselves quite nicely on here sometimes....
DeleteYours was one of the first blogs I discovered after starting my own, via a comment you left on Ayak's blog and we did seem to hit it off straight away. :-) . I love this blogging chain reaction which leads us to discover such interesting people living in such varied settings. Now if we can only get this Spanish meet-up organised, we may one day manage to meet face to face. Wouldn't that be great?
Happy Anniversary yet again! Looking through all the comments above, I was pondering the current health of 'pen friends', and how blogging has really transformed inter-continental friendships. Blogs are different from the more intimate pen-friend relationships of course, which I assume must now mostly be e-mail based. Keep blogging, Perpetua - you are our weekly tonic!
ReplyDeleteSpindrift51
Thanks, Spindrift, I intend to. :-) You make an interesting point about blogging and/or pen friendships. Sadly, I think conventional pen friendships by letter are gradually disappearing as the immediacy and lack of cost of email and other electronic communication take over. My long-time German penfriend reads my blog and comments by email, which has for some time been our normal means of communication except for Christmas cards. Times change, but the need to communicate and build relationships doesn't and blogs are a great way to do both.
DeleteCongratulations on your third blogging birthday Perpetua! Long may you & DH enjoy your lives 'perpetually in transit' and looking forward to seeing you both in March before you set off from Mid-Wales on your spring migration to Scotland. Xs PolkaDot
ReplyDeleteThanks, PolkaDot. Last year our lives were much more static than usual and we're looking forward to resuming what has become our normal patter. It won't last for ever, but I think we have a few more years of it still to come. See you soon. :-)
DeleteA very happy blogging birthday, Miss P. Your blog is a great source of inspiration to me, and I'm happy to count you amongst my blogging pals. Big nuggs xx
ReplyDeleteThanks, MM. Nuggs are always welcome. :-) I love the way other blogs spark off our own imagination and thought processes - a very creative international interaction.
DeleteCongratulations on your 3-year blogging anniversary:) I don't 'do' Facebook but love reading blogs and contributing not as often as I should.
ReplyDeleteThe whole world opens up with blogging and international friendships must surely help world peace as we become more tolerant of other folks.
And of course there are all those blogs that teach us skills in whatever area we are interested in.
Long may Blogland survive!!
Hear, hear, Shirley and thanks. You've put into words something I've felt but not said - that making friends across oceans and between cultures has to be a very positive thing for international understanding. No more living in our own little box, unaware of the rest of the world. As for learning from blogs, I think I do that every day - from recipes to knitting tips and insights into art and history and all with a personal touch.
DeleteDear Perpetua, yours is one of my favorite blogs and I'm so grateful you began it back in 2011. That's when I began also--in late May. The video/audio of Flanders and Swann was a real hoot. I'm not familiar with them but I have a vague memory that at some point you posted another video by them. Peace.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dee. I love your blog too and remember finding it quite soon after you began it. Glad you enjoyed the Flanders and Swann. Yes, I've posted a couple of their songs before and my overseas readers always love them. :-)
Delete