So, blogging – the modern phenomenon. Like keeping a diary and instead of having it securely hidden away you share with people that you hope will hear you without judging – warmly chuckling and shaking their heads (perhaps) at your silliness and idiosyncrasies, but with you and not wishing you harm, while thinking ‘what an idiot!’.

I had a very quick Skype chat with my parents this morning before leaving the house. They just wanted to let me know that they’ve been following my blog (such as it is so far) and that they found it interesting and are learning new things about me. Dad, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this 🙂 I loved hearing you say that! x

Mum and dad live in Tasmania and we are in Esperance, Western Australia. Travel-wise that’s about three flights and a car drive OR an eight hour drive, two flights and a drive OR one flight or eight hour drive, another flight, a 14 hour ferry trip and another drive to visit them OR (as Mum and Dad did) a train trip across Australia, then a ferry trip and then another drive. Many hours and some days later – depending on mode of transport and need, occasion, mojo and time available – you find each other!

This does mean that there’s not a lot of meaningful contact and catch ups tend to be about the mundane, the everyday – kids, weather, TV or movies (you get it). Opportunities to say ‘Oh, so that’s how you think or feel; that’s how you are like or unlike me’ are rare; life is busy, demanding and complicated. “Life is full of interruptions and complications”, Karl in Love Actually. (I was so disappointed that this relationship was unresolved!”.

Whatever ‘work/job’ I happen to be doing, I tend to work at it until I’m a zombie – only good for the sofa and vaguely coherent mumblings (luckily with no gratuitous people eating or moaning!). So, developing deep relations outside of the marital relationship does not happen!

So, blogging! If I’d ever thought about it before I might have thought that ‘bloggers’ were seriously in love with themselves; self-absorbed, self-involved – all the ‘self adjectives’ that we (society) typically frown upon.

In fact, when I asked my son Mathew had he accepted my invite he said something like “Oh no, Mum – as soon as I saw the word ‘blog’ I was over it. I’m pretty sure I’ve deleted the invite”. My immediate feelings were embarrassment (because the word ‘blog’ incites similar feelings in me) and some hurt, because he wasn’t supporting me.

So (I know, I use ‘so’ a lot 🙂 ) first instinct at hearing ‘blog’ (for some) might be negative on the whole – but these days people blog for all sorts of positive reasons. To tell stories of strength in adversity, to support causes or people in need and to highlight concerns that need attention.

So, I’ll refer to my travel blog as ‘the Story’ – and the story so far has lead to me sitting in a coffee shop for an hour writing this – on my day off – with the pink Parker pen that Becky gave me to ‘note all my great writing ideas’. THAT is a positive outcome.

Lots of love xx

P.S. For those of you who have only very recently become friends and may be thinking ‘What? I thought this was a travel blog’ please don’t feel pressured to stay with me! The idea did start off as writing specifically about our trip to Spain; in the meantime it has morphed somewhat to a story of life and a long introduction to our ‘hopefully amazing’ holiday adventure! xx