My new blog

I've decided to write a blog.  Which is funny because I don't really know what a blog is.  I know it's a place where people write stuff online, but what do 'Bloggers' actually write about?  After some research through Google it turns out that most blogs are either:

- "Moms" from Arkansas,
- corporations pushing products,
- or they're themed (cooking, mountaineering, cycling, Christianity, fishing, etc).

My idea of a blog isn't any of those, it's just a place where I write and store thoughts that come into my head, things that might be bothering me, amusing me, frustrating me, boring me, etc.  The key in the last sentence is the word 'store', let me explain ...

I like writing, I've always enjoyed writing.  I remember as a 7 yr old in 1972, I won a 'pick-a-platignum' pen for my story about "Sounds in the morning".  I remember writing about "the water swirling in the kettle" and "listening to Tony Blackburn on the radio".  It really was a beautiful, epic piece of prose.  I jest, in fact I don't remember.  And that's my point, as that story is long gone.  Only the faint memory remains – the pen and those two lines of prose.  I would love to read the whole thing again 40 years on to a) recall what mornings were really like back then, and b) to see what I wrote and to gain an insight as to how my mind was working back in '72.

I still like to write.  I don't know what it is about travel but I often write on long flights.  Often I don't write with any particular topic in mind, I just start to write and I love to see how my thoughts wander.  Again, it's not epic stuff but it’s always amusing to read back at a later date for the a) and b) reasons above.  Problem is I never keep any of that stuff, it gets lost gradually over time, written on scraps of paper or notebooks long since filled and thrown away.

So, I thought I would try and keep an electronic journal. But wait, writing notes on my laptop is no good because I NEVER backup my laptop, and I don't always have my laptop with me.  I also change laptops every few years.  Laptop, bad idea.  In the end I concluded it needs to be online, because that takes all the effort out for me.  I don't have to back it up and I can access it from anywhere using any device.  This is the perfect medium for disorganised people like me.

So there we are – the blog is the perfect medium to capture thoughts, always accessible, always safely backed up on’t’internet.

This is my blog, so move on over Arkansas ‘Moms’ there’s a new daddy in town.  And I have a Pick-A-Platignum pen. Somewhere ...