Sometimes I'm bursting with ideas about things to write about and sometimes I struggle.
So today I thought I would enlist your help so I can decide on future blogs and possibly the direction they might take. After all there is the possibility that, after over three years, I might dry up at some point (sooner rather than later I hear you cry).
A simple question: what would you like to read more of and conversely what would you like to read less about?
I know when I go on about music I alienate some readers and the same with sport, but I guess those things define much of who I am. But do you like reminiscences and travelogues (one coming up)?
I genuinely do write the blogs for you (well that and a little bit of ego obviously).
I think we are all defined by our interests and the way we pick them up is interesting in itself. Some will come from parents and grandparents but others will be collected on life's journey. I have no idea where my love of sport or music comes from. My parents and grandparents weren't particularly interested in either and why have I absolutely no interest in cars or fishing?
I don't ever remember going fishing. I don't ever remember having the urge to go fishing and one of my most boring days ever was accompanying my cousin's husband as he went round car showrooms. I just wanted the day to swallow me up. I think on reflection I would have preferred to have been fishing.
Some interests develop, like my love of history and now family research as I learn more about where I come from. But I studied history at A Level so must have had some genuine interest in it.
Of course there's always the opportunity for new hobbies and interests and also to drop others. As a boy I was very much into stamp collecting but now I don't give it another thought realising that philately doesn't necessarily get you everywhere.
I have, however, always been an avid reader and now I'm an obsessive writer as well. Again I have no idea where these two come from. I can't remember my mother ever reading a book and my father only ever read westerns.
Somebody said the other day "how can you write so much?"
"I write fast," was my response. That's why there are often mistakes in my prose. I write too quickly and don't read through it closely enough but at least I write from the heart, so please forgive the mistakes.
In many ways I have broken the mould with my life. My mother used to be impressed by people with post nominals or as she said "letters after their names". She thought this made them special.
Sadly she didn't live long enough to see me get letters after my name. She would probably have been proud. No she would definitely have been proud. I didn't set out to break any mould, it has just happened over a long period of time.
I will end today with a sobering thought. I'm now 10 years older than my mother was when she died.