There's nothing like a bit of navel gazing (I nearly put naval gazing there) to start the day off!
I started the blog way back on March 8th, 2020, when lockdown looked a distinct possibility. My idea was to write at least one blog a day to go with my walks and various interests and also to respond to any comments I received.
My first blogs were published exclusively on my own website at www.peterowensteward.weebly.com. On September 18th I set-up a dedicated Facebook page which I titled Peter Steward's Daily Blogs, thus committing to a daily column.
I had tried blogging before but never been able to sustain it. This time I wanted to blog at least daily during lockdown and was determined to keep going thanks to the literally hundreds of lovely messages I received in the early days.
The Facebook page started with just over 100 members with the blog of September 18th attracting 118 views. This has since risen to over 400. Yesterday I gave access to my blogs to members of the Norfolk Family History Society Facebook page and within a few hours my membership had increased to 460. At the present time my blogs are viewed by well over 300 people with the best day being April 13th this year with 353 views, closely followed by January 31st with 352. I'm hoping this will be beaten very shortly.
When I started blogging last March I was posting twice and sometimes three times a day but this has now calmed down to one a day. I have now completed over 500 blogs and posted thousands of photographs and am quite proud at what I have achieved. Today's blog is actually number 503.
There has only been four days when I have stared at a blank screen, wondering what to write about. Sometimes I have written blogs of a couple of hundred words and at other times the content has run into thousands of words. It all takes a lot of time but I have found the response very rewarding.
So what do I do when lockdown is over? Well as they say there's a whole world out there to write about and it is my intention at least for the time being to continue with daily blogs. I have considered cutting back to a weekly blog but that's a decision for the future.
Over the past 14 or so months the blog seems to have taken on a character of its own and moved into a number of different directions. I suspect this will continue once lockdown is over and I'm able to get out and about more and actually see people in their own homes which will be a great delight.
I am looking to promote the blog more and push my membership numbers up. I will be visiting as many villages and towns in Norfolk to share my photographs, starting tomorrow with a Sunday visit to Ashwellthorpe Woods and the village.
If there is anything particular you would like me to feature and/or research just leave a message in the comments section and I will do my best to oblige.
I thought that as things are getting back to some kind of normality from today (and hopefully will stay that way although I still remember last year when we seemed to go in and out of lockdown and of course everyone piled out to cafes and restaurants under the Government's Eat Out to Help Out which gave us 50% off food) I would look back on what I wrote in my blog of a year ago.
On May 17th, 2020 I wrote -
"I love the fact I am described on Facebook as a "visual storyteller" as it sums up beautifully what I am trying to do with my blogs - tell stories from Hethersett History and from Hethersett's present with the aid of words and pictures.
And a special thanks to all those who have sent messages of support and said how much they enjoy reading the blogs."
Now I'm looking to extend that whole idea by becoming a visual storyteller for Norfolk. I am hoping in the summer to undertake a walk of the 84 miles of the Norfolk Coastal Path (not all in one day of course).
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Isn't grammar a strange thing? A comma in the right or wrong place can change the whole meaning of a sentence. Yesterday I was in two minds as to where to put the comma in the piece I wrote about the Chimpanzee advert for PG tips which included the phrase Cooey Mr Shifter.
I started by writing the following:
A number of eagle-eyed readers informed me that it was an advert featuring the legendary PG Tips Chimps and Don Williamson, as reliable as ever, sent me the You Tube link for the advert.
Now I know Don will appreciate the humour in the fact that it sounded as if he was one of the legendary PG Tips Chimps and was featured in the advert. So I popped a comma in to show that Don was the guy who told me about the advert. A comma is such a small thing but can completely change the meaning of something.
A number of eagle-eyed readers informed me that it was an advert featuring the legendary PG Tips Chimps, and Don Williamson, as reliable as ever, sent me the You Tube link for the advert.