20 Years a Blogger!

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Yes, I’ve been penning this stuff for a long time now! 🤩

It all started as a ‘techy’ experiment back in May 2004, but today is exactly 20 years since I first began trying out the then ‘next big thing’ called ‘blogging’. Back then, the promise was that ‘everyone, one day, will have their own Blog’ – so I thought I’d better get in the queue. Oops! I’m not sure Blogs ever lived up to that promise – the social media titans of Meta and Twitter certainly derailed that original vision! 😲

However, I stuck with it, and although my content was never of earth-shattering importance, it served as an enjoyable method of recording the bits and bobs (and sometimes the banality) of my life – a sort of online diary. Many of you told me you liked the content and my writing style, so, I carried on!

In later years, it became a really useful reference for settling the occasional ‘conversation’ here, where neither of us could remember ‘the name of that pub near X?’ or ‘when did we first see that film called Y?’. And, as I see out my 60s (where my brain is slowly turning to mush) it’s been massively useful in hunting down detail! (Me? Obsessed with detail? Surely not! 😁😁).

In those early days, Blogs were mostly just text with the odd photo (if the paltry internet speeds could handle it). Fast-forward to now, and it’s clear that blogging is now much more capable. Some of us hung on in there, – and I’m glad I did – but there doesn’t appear to be so many of us around in 2024! 😲.

From that very first Post on Sunday, May 22nd 2004 at 10:10 am, consisting of just SEVEN words, in 20 years, a lot has changed in my world of blogging.

In that time, I’ve taken on some challenges! In January 2019, I swapped blogging platforms (Blogger to WordPress) AND a few years ago, changed hosting providers too! Ooo, I do enjoy pain! 😁. Swapping platforms is most definitely NOT for the faint-hearted, and it tested all of my techy-nouse – and some! 🫨. I changed providers a few years ago because the original hosts – IONOS – corrupted about 15 years’ worth of content and didn’t feel the need to help me fix it. What’s their strapline? “IONOS – I own this!” (clearly not!) 🤬🤬. Around four months of my life, sorting out THEIR mess, was not my idea of fun.

More positively, the new platform has meant I could ‘up the content’ in terms of detail and functionality. Oh! And in the spirit of ‘no pain no gain’, I even managed to seriously break my Blog on more than one occasion, requiring my new provider to fix things (thanks Matt, Matthew, Rick and Jonathan at WDL). WDL have turned out to be massively supportive on a day-to-day basis too, and I can’t praise this small organisation from Colchester highly enough! 👍👍👍👍👍

The result? These days, the platform is stable, and I’ve become far more knowledgeable about how it all works – and that’s also been good for keeping my brain active. Having now published over 3000 Posts and despite the risk of pushing your boredom threshold too far (but no doubt helping with your insomnia!) many of you have been with me since the start – thanks again! 👏😁👏😁👏😁

So, a massive ‘Cheers!’ for your support over the years. Your readership and your feedback have inspired me and made it all worthwhile!👏👏. Consequently, I plan to continue for many more years to come! 😉. Insomniacs rejoice!