Kind of like an exhale

A little while ago - after receiving feedback that subscribers to my blog weren't altogether happy with Substack marketing things at them - I tried switching to “Ghost” - an alternative online publishing platform.

It seemed like a good idea at the time - building my own castle on the internet. My house, my content, my rules. The interesting thing? As time went on I received feedback that perhaps Substack hadn't been so bad after all. Quite a lot of feedback.

I kind of agree with them.

While it's wonderful fun building an island on the internet, you do lose something through not being part of something bigger than yourself. While a community can be annoying from time to time, it can also be tremendously supportive.

There’s also Ian Malcom’s observation about Jurassic Park to weigh; “they were so preoccupied with wether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should”.

With all of that in mind, earlier this evening I built a Calvin and Hobbes inspired "transmogrifier", and set about resurrecting the blog as it had been not so long ago. If you're reading this from an email, you're already subscribed - there's nothing you need to do.

Anyway.

Enough writing about writing.

Today was a good day.

I managed to export everything off a rather recalcitrant old work laptop, and will upload everything to it's replacement tomorrow. I had hoped to buy the old laptop for my daughter, but after asking the question at pay-grades higher than mine, got a resounding "no". For all sorts of very good reasons that I can fully understand our work laptops get professionally wiped and re-cycled rather than risk anything that might have been on them getting into the hands of anybody that might have been interested.

Throughout the day I have been checking in on Hopalong Cassidy (my other half who sprained her ankle of Friday) - making her cups of tea, and offering to fetch and carry things for her. She's ridiculously stubborn and independent though - so expecting her not to try and do things is somewhat challenging.

While writing this I'm sipping a glass of leftover wine from the Eurovision night-in, and listening to Spotify. Eric Carmen just started singing "All By Myself". Now I want to go watch Bridget Jones singing it into a hairbrush. I love the piano break in the middle.

I guess I should hit the publish button on this before rambling on any more incoherently than I already have. While resurrecting the blog, Norah Ephron's words came to mind - that blogging is kind of like an exhale. She wasn't wrong.

Deep breaths.