The First Anniversary of This Time Last Year.

This time last year I was developing my retirement plans. The basic idea was to get an allotment, take up beekeeping, fishing, foraging and beating at a pheasant shoot. All of which were partially inspired by watching a little too much River Cottage.

Progress has been significant. This time last year I had no allotment and little hope of getting one. I now have the use of three ‘half plots’ (but that’s another story). I have joined the local beekeepers association; I have a beehive and the promise of bees in the spring. I foraged for my first wild mushroom. I’m a regular beater at a nearby shoot.

I find myself with an almost completely different social circle and a completely revised set of favourites on my web browser. I’ve also found another interest, ‘blogging’.

If I’m honest, I don’t think blogging is very well supported on the River Cottage website. At the time of writing the blog of the week is nearly three months old. I’ve used the Questions section of the website and got good advice as a result. I find the Forum threads tend to ramble away from original subject. So the purpose of this blog dear reader is, to encourage you to have a go. Blogs allow you something different. Blogs allow you to express an opinion, relate your experience, tell a story, pass on your expertise, or any combination of the above. It can be on any subject, from the weather to the global recession, to the circumference of your beetroot. Anything goes, so long as it’s legal and doesn’t cause too much offence.

While working on any one of the more tedious jobs on the allotment you may find your mind wandering to, and dwelling on some issue or other. There starts a blog, it’s then just a question of getting it written down and posted on the web, easy.

Having blogged, I find myself checking e-mail every morning to see if anyone has commented on my effort, if people agree or disagree with the sentiments expressed. I find I want to get my blog out to a wider audience. Like a terrorist, I crave the oxygen of publicity. Other bloggers generate their own websites to host their blogs, but that sounds a bit technical for me.

Please keep reading the River Cottage blog section, make comments, and have a go yourself. You never know you may be a budding HFW.

First posted on the River Cottage website ob 13/01/2010